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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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Chap.i....... Copyright No. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



mammoth 
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The Entrance in Winter — Looking Out. 




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With Historical 
Notes »»» Scenic 
Accounts » » and 
Descriptive and 
Scientific Matters 
of Interest to Vis- 
itors, based upon 
ne'w and original 
explorations**** 



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Illustrated 
manual 



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Horace Garter l)m\, H.m.,D,D. 

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Richard eilswortb Call, fl.m.,Pb.D. 




3ohn P. tnorton and Company 
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IUI,2618S? ^ M 



COPYRIGHTED 1897 
BY JOHN P. MORTON & COMPANY 






PREFACE. 

WE undertook this Manual because it seemed to 
be needed. Its object is to embody, in con- 
venient shape and compass, the latest word 
relating to the history, inhabitants, and recent dis- 
coveries that attract visitors to the Mammoth Cave. 
The joint preparation of the Manual v^as decided upon 
by the authors, in view of the special work accomplished 
by each of us along differing lines. It is not especially 
designed as a contribution to original knowledge, though 
many facts and statements will here be found in print 
for the first time. Both of the writers belong to 
national scientific societies, and to the Societe de Spele- 
ologie of France. They have contributed articles to 
scientific journals concerning this great cavern, and 
have published volumes on American caverns. 

It is well to indicate the share each author has had 
in the preparation of this Manual. The special work 
of Doctor Hovey has been the chapter devoted to the 
geological environment of Mammoth Cave, White 
Cave, and Dixon's Cave ; the descriptive matter of the 
River Route, and of the Main Cave beyond Star 
Chamber. Doctor Call has prepared the chapter 
which deals with the natural history of the cave, includ- 
ing the interior geology, and he is responsible for the 
descriptive matter of the Route of Pits and Domes. 
The Map, which is somewhat modified from the exist- 
ing cartographs of the cave, was also prepared by him, 
and he is responsible for the changes indicated in the 
avenues, and for the addition of avenues, pits, and 



IV PREFACE. 

domes not found in the older maps by Bishop and 
by Hovey. 

The remainder of the book is due to composite 
authorship, the experience of the one aiding the other. 
The special portions also have been revised by each 
writer, thus making more exact and useful the knowl- 
edge we have gathered in our work in this underground 
world. The reader should understand that this book is 
by no means a product of casual visits to Mammoth 
Cave ; but is based upon long-continued study and fre- 
quent explorations. It is intended to be a reliable 
account of what the visitor will see. No exaggeration 
of distances, depths, or heights has been countenanced. 
The public is entitled to a truthful account of Mammoth 
Cave, and this we have endeavored to give. 

To make clearer some of the interesting localities, 
our publishers have introduced some halftones from 
original photographs by Hains, Darnall, and others, 
showing exceptionally striking scenery, or views of the 
more important places visited. 

We are indebted to several friends for kindly offices. 
First of all should be mentioned Mr. Henry C. Ganter, 
the genial manager of the Mammoth Cave estate, who 
afiforded both the senior and junior authors, and espe- 
cially the latter, every possible facility for research and 
study. Without his liberality this Manual would prob- 
ably not have been undertaken. We are also indebted 
to the transportation officers of the railroads for numer- 
ous courtesies. We would especially mention President 
M. H. Smith, Colonel C. P. Atmore, and E. G. John- 
son, of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad ; and Colonel 
R. H. Lacey and Mr. J. A. McGoodwin, of the Mam- 
moth Cave Railroad. Without exception these officials 



PREFACE. V 

have aided us in our undertaking in a most substantial 
manner. 

Of the public which may read our book, we ask for 
that indulgence which may properly come when a great 
matter is treated in a limited space. We trust that the 
reader who goes with us in our subterranean rambles 
will be gratified and profited by reading our descriptive 
matter, as he faces the scenes and objects that we have 
attempted to describe. 

Horace Carter Hovey, 
Richard Ellsworth Call, 



SYNOPSIS. 

The Cavern Region of Kentucky. 

Historical Sketch and Environment. 

The Route of Pits and Domes. 

The Chief City and Fairy Grotto (Main Cave Route). 

The River Route. 

The Natural History of the Cavern. 

The Map. 



THE CAVERN REGION OF KENTUCKY. 

BY HORACE CARTER HOVEY. 

LARGE caverns are limited to regions favorable to 
the process of cave-making. Kentucky is pecul- 
* iarly such a region. Along rocky sea-coasts 
grottoes are numerous and often beautiful. But the 
mighty billows that carve the granite into natural tun- 
nels, or spouting horns, or fantastic arches, also break 
down their own products, and transform grottoes into 
chasms, embayments, or straits. This destructive 
agency has been so vigorously active along the Atlantic 
coast that not a cavern can be found, from the Bay of 
Fundy to the Gulf of Mexico, deep enough to exclude 
the daylight. With ice caves, and those formed in 
lava-beds, or among coral islands, and in granitic 
regions, we need not here concern ourselves. 

Limestone regions vary according to their exemp- 
tion from or exposure to mountain-making forces. 
The limestones of Virginia, for instance, have been 
upheaved and shaken by orogenic action until they 
are cracked and fissured by seams running in every 
direction. These were easily enlarged by the action 
of water, and were thus developed into countless grot- 
toes, some of which have gained a world-wide celebrity. 
But the fractured condition of the rocks limited the 
process of cave-making ; and in size the Virginia caves 
are insignificant, compared with the enormous excava- 
tions found in the homogeneous and nearly undisturbed 
limestone regions of Kentucky and other States of the 
central West. 



2 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

Then, again, the conditions of the country rock vary 
as we descend the valley of the Ohio. About Cincin- 
nati and Covington the Lower Silurian limestones are 
presented in thin, fragile strata, with variable layers of 
shale between ; and in these it would be almost impos- 
sible for even small grottoes to grow. But when this 
terrane meets the Upper Silurian, as at Madison, Indi- 
ana, the massive upper ledges resist decomposition, 
while the underlying softer strata are easily eroded ; 
and the result is seen in some of the most picturesque 
grottoes in the world. Rising in the geological horizon 
while descending the valley, we enter the most exten- 
sive cave region on the globe. The Ohio River tran- 
sects this territory in such a manner that three fourths 
of it lies in Kentucky, while the remaining fourth is 
divided between Indiana and Tennessee. In Indiana is 
the wonderful Wyandot Cave, and in Tennessee the 
formidable Nicajack ; which are worthy rivals of Ken- 
tucky's greatest cavern. 

The main line of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad 
runs through the region in which Mammoth Cave is 
located. And as we ride swiftly and comfortably along 
we can observe from the cars the more conspicuous 
results of the complex erosive process by which the 
landscape has been wrought into its present features. 

Imagine a vast plain, which in its entirety covers 
quite eight thousand square miles, and that plain, during 
successive ages, slowly and gently uplifted, as a whole, 
by geological agencies. Extensive erosion necessarily 
would ensue. For, previous to this uplifting, this part 
of the continent was submerged ; but since the Carbon- 
iferous period the region has been dry land. Unlike 
the areas to the remote West and South, there are here 



THE CAVERN REGION OF KENTUCKY. 3 

no cretaceous nor Tertiary rocks. The hills are all 
Carboniferous ; though in many places, as in the 
vicinity of Louisville, these eminences have been worn 
awa}', and the underlying Devonian and Silurian now 
form the country rock. 

Meanwhile the falling rains have run over the slight- 
ly tilted limestone rocks, wearing their surface into fur- 
rows and undermining the harder ledges. Additional 
to this mechanical agency chemical forces have been at 
work. From the air and the soil the rain-water gathers 
into itself carbonic acid (carbon dioxide) which attacks 
the limestone, dissolves it slowly or rapidly, as the case 
may be ; after which the water runs away with its 
mineral burden. The region once level now becomes 
undulating ; the surface waters find, or make, under- 
ground channels, and finally the region is honey-combed 
with caverns. Where less soluble rocks occur, or form 
the surface, the process of erosion is less rapid. Hills 
are thus formed, their very tops refusing to yield to 
solution. The environs become lower, and finally 
conical masses remain, testifying by their geologic 
structure to the processes that have been at work. 

The problem is complicated, so far as the region 
around the Mammoth Cave is concerned, by the fact 
that the compact Chester Sandstone overlies the St. 
Louis Limestone, which is here largely oolitic. The 
sandstone yields slowly to the mechanical action of the 
running water, but resists its chemical action ; while 
the limestone yields to both these agencies. It thus 
happens that there are visible thousands of "knobs" 
and myriads of "sink-holes." Knobs are eminences, 
sometimes several hundred feet high, and frequently 
perfect pyramids, left by the erosion of the weaker 



4 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

rocks, the original strata being diminished horizontally, 
but undisturbed in position, even to the apex of the 
pyramidal peak. The sink-holes, on the other hand, 
are usually oval depressions, of every conceivable size 
and of variant depths, without inlet or outlet, except 
through funnels which communicate with subterranean 
passages. These pits were, in former times, and some- 
times still are, natural animal-traps, into which has 
fallen many a wild denizen of the forest. In order to 
save domestic animals from a similar catastrophe 
numerous sink-holes have been artificially plugged, thus 
transforming them into deep pools. So extensive has 
been the undermining by the process now described, 
that one may travel on horseback all day, through cer- 
tain parts of Kentucky, without crossing a single run- 
ning surface stream ; all the rain-water that falls being 
carried down through the sink-holes into caverns below, 
where are the gathering-beds that feed the few large 
open streams of the region, of which the Green River 
is an example. 

It is reported that there are four thousand sink-holes 
and five hundred known caverns in Edmonson County 
alone. The Mammoth Cave Railway, that leads from 
Glasgow Junction directly to the cave, passes a number 
of them. The largest sink-hole known is the Eden 
Valley, along whose margin the road runs. This charm- 
ing valley is adorned by fertile farms, and occasional 
ponds that mirror the passing clouds, and it is flanked 
by the virgin forest; but after all it is a true sink-hole, 
without inlet or outlet. Its area is certainly not less 
than two thousand acres, and this enormous depression 
must have been made by the falling in of a series of 
great caverns. 



THE CAVERN REGION OF KENTUCKY. 5 

The reader will not expect us in this Manual, which 
is meant to describe a single famous cavern, to offer a 
catalogue of the other known caverns of the county. 
Some of these, like the Diamond, the Grand Crystal, 
Proctor's, and the recently opened Colossal caverns, 
have gained more than a local celebrity. Another large 
cavern, the Salt Cave, belongs to the Mammoth Cave 
estate, and has interest for scientific men on account of 
its prehistoric relics. It is now very difficult of access; 
and being absolutely dry, the explorer needs to carry 
his own water supply. Hence it is very rarely visited. 

The White Cave belongs to the same estate, and is 
well worth visiting. It gets its name from the brilliant 
whiteness of its stalactitic formations. It is really a 
branch of the Mammoth Cave, being connected with it 
by a passage, now occluded, leading to Klett's Dome 
and the Mammoth Dome, of which the former is a por- 
tion, separated therefrom by the thin floor at the end 
of Little Bat Avenue, through which Crevice Pit leads 
— connecting thus the two domes that are practically 
and geologically identical. 

The entrance to the White Cave is guarded by an 
iron gate, beyond which is an oval chamber, irregular in 
outline, beneath whose low, flat roof we proceed to the 
second chamber. Here is exhibited a splendid piece of 
stalactitic drapery, called the Frozen Cascade. It is 
fretted and folded in a thousand fantastic forms, and 
well deserves its name. The resemblance of this mass 
of onyx to the gigantic columns formed in winter around 
great waterfalls, such as Niagara, is indeed striking. 
The roof is covered with pendants, from the largest 
stalactites down to those as small as a quill ; each one 
of which is hollow, and from whose tips hang tremulous 



6 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

drops of water sparkling like diamonds. The floor is 
intersected with shallow, crooked channels, in which 
run transparent rills. A stately shaft, named Hum- 
boldt's Column, appears to support the low arch. 

In the third chamber are huge blocks of limestone 
cemented together and encumbering the floor. And 
around all is kindly drawn a wide veil of the purest ala- 
baster. Attempts have been made to break through 
this mighty curtain, with the hope of finding a passage 
into the Mammoth Cave. With the same wish cer- 
tain deep pits in the vicinity have been thoroughly 
explored, but thus far in vain. 

Some eighty years ago Mr. J. D. Clifford, a Ken- 
tuckian, exhumed from the floor of the White Cave 
certain bones, that, after passing through several hands, 
finally came into the possession of the Academy of 
Natural Sciences, at Philadelphia. It has been stated 
that among them were the remains of bisons, stags, a 
bear, a megalonyx, and also a human skeleton. This 
remarkable statement is open to serious question, be- 
yond the megalonyx bones ; and it is mentioned here 
merely because some degree of paleontologic impor- 
tance has been attached to the story. * 

Dixon's Cave, also belonging to the same estate, is 
supposed to have been, at some remote prehistoric 
time, the original mouth of the Mammoth Cave. 
However this may be, the cave is well worth visiting 
for its own sake. Its mouth is a yawning gulf, some- 
what larger than that by which one enters Mammoth 

*See a reference to the Megalonyx of the White Cave, Kentucky, by Doctor 
Richard Harlan, American Journal of Geology, Vol. j, page 76; and a more full 
account of the same on page 171, by Professor William Cooper, who distin- 
guishes it from the specimen found at Big-Bone Lick, Kentucky, and in the Big- 
Bone Cave, in White County, Tennessee. These were evidently three distinct 
discoveries.— H. C. H. 



THE CAVERN REGION OF KENTUCKY. 7 

Cave. In its present condition it is obstructed by fallen 
forest trees, over or under whose trunks and sprawling 
branches we must climb or creep. We are rewarded 
by finding ourselves in the mightiest subterranean hall 
yet discovered. The cavern is a single immense tem- 
ple with one eternal arch of limestone. By our meas- 
urement it is fifteen hundred feet long, from sixty to 
eighty feet wide, and from eighty to one hundred and 
twenty-five feet high. It gradually curves from south- 
east to due south ; and the dimensions are quite 
uniform throughout. The roof is decorated here and 
there by numerous stalactites, none of them very large ; 
and other parts of it are blackened by myriads of bats, 
especially in winter, clinging together like swarms of 
bees. Every foot of the floor was searched and over- 
turned long ago by the industrious miners, who carried 
the niter-bearing earth outside to the vats and boiling- 
tubs whose ruins are yet visible. The miners left the 
rocky fragments within the cavern piled in what might 
be described as transverse stony billows, of which we 
counted eighteen ; each wave being forty feet through 
at the base, and rising thirty or forty feet above the 
true floor. At the extreme end the mass of earth and 
rock does not seem to have been disturbed. Over this 
we can climb to the very roof, amid whose nooks we 
sought in vain for access to Mammoth Cave. Doubt- 
less by suitable excavation the desired connection might 
be made. Igniting a series of Bengal lights simultane- 
ously, we were able to take in at a glance the dimen- 
sions of this enormous hall of Titanic magnitude. 

Green River is the only openly running stream in 
the immediate region, and its waters are wholly fed 
from subterranean reservoirs. Its bluffs are gashed 



8 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

here and there by rifts, or wide arches, from some of 
which issue streams that serve as modes of exit for 
underground waters. Were it practicable to enter 
them, we might cHmb through a series of rocky galler- 
ies, till at last we emerged in some one of those oval 
valleys already described as sink-holes. The usual 
mode of entrance to caverns, however, is at some place 
where the roof has broken through, and whose rocky 
fragments, partly filling the subterranean dome, serve 
as convenient stepping-stones down into darkness. 

Such a break is the present entrance to the Mam- 
moth Cave. It is one hundred and eighteen feet below 
the crest of the bluff, one hundred and ninety-four feet 
above the level of Green River, and seven hundred 
and thirty-five feet above the level of the sea. The 
limestone bed measures three hundred and twenty- 
eight feet in thickness, from its upper limit, where it is 
in contact with the sandstone, down to the drainage 
level of the cave, and doubtless extends below many 
feet further. The sandstone, which is Subcarbonifer- 
ous, with occasional layers of conglomerate, rises at the 
surface in irregular elevations. This geological fact 
accounts for the vast area of the cavern, and also for the 
paucity of its stalactitic decoration compared with other 
caverns ; as for instance with the adjacent White Cave, 
from above which the sandstone has been entirely 
stripped away. 

The British Association for the Advancement of 
Science, and also the Smithsonian Institution of this 
country, took much interest a few years ago in a series 
of observations for determining the mean temperature of 
the crust of the earth. They justly reasoned that by 
ascertaining the temperature of the immense and nearly 



THE CAVERN REGION OF KENTUCKY. 9 

stationary body of air confined in Mammoth Cave 
they would approximate to the temperature of the 
crust of the earth for the same latitude. Accordingly 
they requested the senior author of this Manual to 
make a series of observations, which he did with the 
utmost care in 1881, not only here but in other ca^^erns, 
using for the purpose verified thermometers furnished 
to him expressly by the Kew and the Winchester Ob- 
servatories. The final result of more than a hundred 
experiments was that the mean temperature of Mam- 
moth Cave, and of other caverns in the same latitude, is 
about fifty-four degrees Fahrenheit. The extremes of 
external cold or heat may have to be allowed for. Every 
summer visitor notices the strong current of air flowing 
out from the mouth of Mammoth Cave, and that at 
times amounts to a gale preventing our carrying lighted 
lamps into the entrance. The cool air wells up like an 
invisible fountain, and flows down like a stream toward 
Green River. Into this aerial stream we step, we wade 
knee-deep, we are finally immersed as we enter the 
great cavern. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH AND ENVIRONMENT. 



HOVEY AND CALL. 



SS many as twenty-eight limestone caverns were 
known in Kentucky by the year 1800, beside 
many "rock-houses." From these a certain 
Mr. Fowler is said to have obtained "one hundred 
thousand pounds of niter." It is stated, in the early 
accounts of these localities, that solid masses of salt- 
peter were found "weighing from one hundred to 
sixteen hundred pounds." Byrem Lawrence, in his 
Geology of the Western States, published in 1843, 
corrects a popular error by saying of these deposits : 
' False saltpeter is found in many caves, particularly 
m the Mammoth Cave. It is but a nitrate of lime, 
and has to be changed to the nitrate of potash by 
leaching it through wood ashes." Doctor Samuel 
Brown, of Lexington, made a journey of a thousand 
miles on horseback, in the year 1806, in order to lay 
before the American Philosophical Society at Phila- 
delphia the facts concerning these resources, which, 
he declared, would be especially precious in case of 
warfare with any foreign power. He enters into the 
details as to the manufacture of saltpeter, but does 
not mention Mammoth Cave. Hence we discredit the 
statement made by Bayard Taylor that this cave was 
found in 1802, and accept the testimony of Mr. Frank 
Gorin that it was first entered, in 1809, by a hunter 
named Houchins (or Hutchins), in pursuit of a wounded 
bear. But the explorers found that it abounded in 
nitrous earth, which fact led to its purchase by a Mr. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH AND ENVIRONMENT. II 

McLean, in 1811, who bought the cave and two hun- 
dred acres of land about its mouth, paying for it the 
sum of forty dollars. McLean soon sold it to Mr. 
Gatewood, who, in turn, sold it to Messrs. Gratz and 
Wilkins, whose agent, Mr. Archibald Miller, made a 
fortune for them from it during the War of 18 12. The 
remains of their saltpeter works are still to be seen at 
certain places within the cave. 

A few words are in place regarding the early crude 
manufacture of one of the essential ingredients of gun- 
powder. The "miners" were mainly negroes, who 
gathered the "peter dirt," as it was familiarly called, 
using ox-carts for bringing it from the more accessible 
avenues, and carrying it in sacks from remoter rooms. 
The soil was leached in vats within the cave ; whence 
the solution was pumped out to open-air boilers. The 
concentrated liquor was next run through hoppers filled 
with wood ashes, boiled a second time, and cooled in 
wooden troughs. Then the crystals of potassium nitrate 
which formed were taken out and packed for transpor- 
tation by the most primitive methods to the seaboard. 
The yield was, on an average, about four pounds of 
the calcium nitrate to the bushel of "peter dirt," and 
Mr. Miller reported to his employers that, from the 
Mammoth Cave alone, they could "supply the whole 
population of the globe with saltpeter." Emphasis 
should be laid on the fact, not mentioned in any history 
of the United States, that our War with Great Britain, 
in 18 1 2, would have ended in failure on our side had it 
not been for the resources so abundantly furnished by 
American caverns for the home manufacture of salt- 
peter at a time when by a general embargo we were 
wholly cut off from foreign sources of supply. 



12 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

Gratz and Wilkins, in 1816, disposed of the cave, 
together with about sixteen hundred acres of land, to 
Mr. James Moore, a Philadelphia merchant, who was 
ruined, it is averred, by his complications with Burr and 
Blennerhassett. Thereupon the property passed once 
more, for a time, into the hands of Mr. Gatewood, who 
made it a place of exhibition to the public. 

In 1837 the estate was purchased by Mr. Frank 
Gorin, who employed Moore and Miller as his agents, 
and Stephen Bishop and Matt Bransford as guides. 
Then began the era of discoveries. Explorations were 
pushed to such a degree that the wonders of the cave 
attracted attention, not only throughout America, but 
also in Europe. Among the immediate causes for such 
active exploration was the fact that Mr. C. F. Harvey, 
Mr. Gorin's nephew, was lost in the cave for thirty-nine 
hours. And among the results was the fact that Doctor 
John Croghan, a young physician of Louisville, was 
repeatedly asked, during his travels abroad, about the 
marvels of Mammoth Cave. It mortified him to own 
that he could give no information. Accordingly, on his 
return, he visited the locality, and was so charmed with 
it that he bought it of Mr. Gorin, on October 8, 1839, 
and subsequently expended large sums in its develop- 
ment. At his death, in 1845, he devised the estate to 
his eleven nephews and nieces, the sons and daughters 
of Colonel George Croghan, Mr. William Croghan, and 
General T. S. Jessup ; of these only three now survive. 
At their decease the property, which includes some two 
thousand acres, must be sold, and the proceeds divided 
equally among the heirs of the legatees. 

Among the agents who have exhibited the cave may 
be mentioned Messrs. Archibald, James and William 



HISTORICAL SKETCH AND ENVIRONMENT. 1 3 

Miller, L. R. Proctor, Francis Klett, and Henry C. 
Ganter, the present manager in charge of affairs. Of 
the guides, Stephen Bishop and Matt Bransford merit 
special distinction. Though slaves they became learned 
in their line of research, and won world-wide celebrity 
for scientific knowledge of subterranean matters. Both 
are now dead ; as is also Nicholas Bransford, the 
brother of Matt, and for many years the sharer in his 
labors. The list of living guides includes William 
Garvin, William Bransford, Edward Bishop, Edward 
Hawkins, Joshua Wilson, and John Nelson. Others, 
both white men and negroes, are at hand for emergen- 
cies. None but responsible guides are employed, and 
visitors are required to respect their authority. 

A short walk from the railway train brings us to the 
Mammoth Cave Hotel, which is an interesting case of 
evolution from a log cabin. The original cabin still 
stands, just as it did in the days of the saltpeter miners, 
only being now weather-boarded the logs are hidden 
from observation. Other cabins were added, at a later 
day, standing in a long row ; and a central cabin was 
built, with a wide hall between two parlors. In process 
of time all these isolated cabins were joined together as 
one structure, with wide verandas and six hundred 
feet of covered portico. A spacious frame house was 
erected in front, with offices, dining-hall, assembly- 
room, and other conveniences. The tall, white pillars of 
the long colonnade, between which one looks out on a 
grove of oaks and cedars, the ample lawn, the exten- 
sive garden, together with the rustic surroundings, 
make the place a delightful resort for those who do not 
demand too many city privileges in the heart of a prim- 
itive forest. 



14 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

The natural beauty of the pathway from the hotel to 
the mouth of the cavern always awakens the interest of 
every nature-loving visitor ; whether it be traversed in 
the dewy morning, at sultry noon, or by fascinating 
moonlight. The rough pathway is sufficiently smoothed 
to permit us to notice our surroundings. Tall syca- 
mores, chestnuts, poplars — the tulip tree of the region 
— gnarled and knotted oaks festooned with giant vines, 
clumps of pawpaw, or of spice- wood, with occasional 
groups of the Judas-tree, and an undergrowth of smaller 
bushes, moss-beds and fairy-like ferns, amid which are 
sprinkled myriads of brilliant fungi, conspire to make a 
landscape of singular beauty and botanical richness. 
However gay and merry the party may be, the fresh- 
ness and loveliness of the pathway always excite atten- 
tion and become a subject of conversation. At a point 
about three hundred yards from the hotel the path 
strikes a wagon-road that leads down to Green River, 
which it crosses by a ford. Paths diverge to the 
Upper and Lower Big Springs, places that have long 
been regarded as exits for the subterranean rivers. But 
when one considers the great volume of water pent up 
within the rocks, and the rapidity with which it often 
rises and falls, it is evident that, although these deep 
and limpid springs may be connected with Echo River, 
and other cave streams, they can not be their main 
outlet. 

Visitors usually defer their ramble to Green River, 
and cross the wagon-road directly to the entrance of 
the cave. In former times a hotel stood near the great 
opening that now confronts us. But the building was 
destroyed by fire many years ago, and only the scarred 
trees near by prove that it ever existed. The opening 



HISTORICAL SKETCH AND ENVIRONMENT. 1$ 

to the subterranean world which we are to visit is on 
our right, as we approach, and its actual dimensions are 
usually underestimated at first sight. But it is indeed 
a noble vestibule, and our impressions of its size undergo 
revision as we descend the winding steps of limestone 
slabs, leading around the waterfall that leaps down on 
our left from a ledge garlanded with ferns and the 
greenest of liverworts, and conducting us amid the 
gloomy shadows where the daylight slowly dies into 
utter darkness. A singular fact about this mysterious 
cascade is that it emerges from a rift in the rocks, 
gleams for a moment in the sunlight as it measures its 
fall from the arch to the floor, and then instantly sinks 
to begin anew its wanderings through realms of eternal 
night in the nether world. 

This is the only entrance to Mammoth Cave ; or if 
there are other entrances the fact has never been made 
known. Into this opening, smaller then than now, 
went that legendary bear, with the hunter Hutchins 
after him, which, by an accident of the chase, gave to 
the world of letters and of science this greatest of 
caverns. Since those days the fallen trees and rocky 
debris have been patiently removed by men skilled in 
underground toil, and the rougher places with uncertain 
bottom have been smoothed and filled, until the veteran 
Nimrod would not now recognize the place which he 
was the first of all mankind to see and imperfectly 
explore. 

For the convenience of visitors two principal lines 
of exploration have been laid out, the longest being 
designated in this Manual, "The River Route," and 
the shorter one, "The Route of Pits and Domes." 
Special trips may also be arranged for those having the 



l6 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

leisure and inclination to take them, after having fol- 
lowed the customary lines of subterranean travel. 
Facilities are likewise given for visiting the White 
Cave, Dixon's Cave, and other places of interest in the 
vicinity 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 

BY RICHARD ELLSWORTH CALL. 

THE visitor is at the foot of the rude stone stairway 
leading from the rim of the cavern's mouth. 
The patter of the waters falHng from the little 
spring as it leaves the mid-arch forty feet above him, 
sounding again and again in mimic echoes from the 
walls and roof around, gives him the first inkling of 
underground symphony. Looking backward he catches 
the last glimpse of the blue sky, forming a transparent 
background for the tall forest trees which seem to nod 
him a farewell. A fleecy cloud or two floats lazily 
across the bright sky ; the cheery chirp of a thrush is 
borne to him, wafted on the incoming breeze ; the same 
air current shakes to and fro the graceful maiden-hair 
ferns which fringe the opening above and about, or 
make tremble the green leaves of the trees, made 
greener still by contrast with the dull gray of the lime- 
stone wall. All these things the visitor will note if he 
be a lover of Nature, and then he turns to obey the 
summons of the guide and faces — darkness ! The rill 
at which he for a moment had looked plunged into the 
bottom darkness, and so will he. It seems to him a fit 
emblem of his own life, from night to night, but a 
brief day. 

Passing along on the right for a distance of fifty 
yards or so, and the Iron Gate, rendered necessary to 
prevent the work of Vandal hands on the formations of 
the cave, looms dimly before us in the gathering 
gloom. A moment's delay suffices to enter, and we 



1 8 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

have the consciousness of being at last under the earth, 
shut in from the great, beautiful world of light. Occa- 
sionally there are found timid ones who here turn back, 
who can not remain unmindful of the darkness and its 
thousand of uncanny impressions, and so would find 
little real pleasure in the journey now well begun. But 
such persons are few ; the majority of visitors appear 
to have little thought of surroundings other than a lively 
sense of something novel, and hasten eagerly forward to 
sound the mysteries which lie in the darkness beyond. 
One's impression of Mammoth Cave, favored by the 
great arched entrance, will here receive violent amend- 
ment, for the walls are close on either hand and the 
roof is so low that one must stoop as he passes along. 
But dangers to head and feet are successfully avoided, 
and now we pass through Hutchins' Narrows. On either 
side the loose rocks have been piled in compact man- 
ner, leaving a narrow passage of but few feet in width. 
These piled rocks bear silent testimony to the toil of 
nearly a century ago, when the miners laid them as the 
visitor sees them, that they might easier carry their 
burdens to the upper world. Under your feet pass the 
pipes, bored with great toil from long stems of trees, 
through which was carried the water of the spring which 
we saw at the entrance, to be used in the leaching vats 
within, as well as to carry it back again when it had 
accomplished its work of solution and was ready for the 
clumsy chemistry of the day at the mouth of the cave. 
To the left, about half way down the Narrows, rest the 
bodies of two of the aboriginal owners of the land, found 
in the soil by the earliest miners and reburied at this 
place. Their tomb is the ancient soil, their monument 
the rude piles of rocks which the visitor passes, usually 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. IQ 

unconscious that here lie these primitive children of 
the New World. 

As the visitor passes along the Narrows, suddenly 
the walls will begin to recede; his pathway lies down a 
small hill of some ten or twelve feet, and darkness, but 
slightly dispelled by the fitful glare of his lamp, alone 
confronts him. The guide announces that the Rotunda 
has been reached, and the fitness of the name is appar- 
ent. Above him sixty feet is the grand arch which 
forms the roof of this immense hall, broken into folds 
and frets of great beauty along the upper margin. The 
ceiling is one great expanse of whitish limestone, 
unsupported by pillar or column, and is formed by the 
junction of the two large avenues which at last take 
shape as one's eyes become accustomed to the gloom. 
That great avenue to the right is Audubon Avenue, 
and will take us to Olive's Bower, containing the near- 
est and most beautiful of the stalactites to be seen in 
the cave. To the left stretches away for miles the 
Main Cave, a wonderful avenue of great height and 
width, full of attractions for the intelligent observer. 

The guides will tell you that the Rotunda is imme- 
diately under the hotel which the visitor left a few 
minutes before. There will be pointed out to you the 
first of the crude leaching vats in which the early miners 
obtained the lime nitrate for use in making saltpeter at 
the mouth of the cave, as has been already explained 
in the historical chapter. Then will come the brilliant 
illumination, and for the first time the grandeur of 
these underground halls comes clearly out into view. 
As the Bengal lights burn brightly the great circle of 
the central roof comes into view, and, if in late fall or 
winter, thousands of bats, in the long sleep of winter, 



20 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

will be seen pendent from the angles and walls. The 
two great avenues leading from the Rotunda become 
more marked still whenever the bright light of illumin- 
ation only extends the boundary of their eternal night, 
drives it back but a little way further and adds to our 
conception of its blackness. 

We will now pass down the avenue to our right, 
named for the celebrated ornithologist of Kentucky, 
noting the vertical side walls, free from rock talus, as 
we go. To our left, well down in the middle third of 
the wall, about five hundred feet from the Rotunda, 
will be seen a low arch, forming the beginning of the 
first side avenue. This is the Little Bat Room, named 
for the myriads of bats which in winter may be found 
here. The avenue along which we are passing was 
originally called the Big Bat Room, but Kentucky's 
eccentric naturalist, Professor Rafinesque, named it for 
Audubon, his rival brother student of Nature. Little 
Bat Avenue leads by a winding way, described in 
another part of this Manual by Doctor Hovey, to 
Klett's Dome and to Crevice Pit. 

Four hundred feet beyond the opening into this 
avenue the roof and walls make a sweeping turn to the 
right, and leave an apparently immense hall on the 
visitor's left. This hall extends only some three hun- 
dred and fifty feet, ending in a great hill of sandstone 
and limestone debris, sixty or more feet high, which 
completely occludes the avenue. To this room the 
name of Rafinesque Hall is given, while to the hill itself 
the fancy of the guides has affixed the name of Lookout 
Mountain. This is the underside of a "sink-hole," and 
from it the geologically instructed visitor may learn 
valuable lessons. From the irregular opening in the 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 21 

roof of the farthest portion of the hall falls a spring, 
keeping the rocks, everywhere cemented with lime car- 
bonate, in perpetual dampness. One entomologically 
inclined may here find rare specimens of blind beetles, 
and an occasional "cricket"; but life is not abundant. 

Returning to the great avenue which we just left, 
we find the walls become more vertical still for some 
distance, while the arch overhead seems to widen as 
we advance. Soon, however, the roof approaches the 
floor, the visitor unconsciously traveling upgrade, and 
we are confronted by a wall of rock, around which 
we pass through a narrow defile. Then the mushroom 
beds, described elsewhere by Doctor Hovey,* appear, 
twQ or three stone walls filled with dirt in an unsuc- 
cessful attempt to force Nature to do something for 
which the natural conditions are unfitted. We look 
upon them as we pass by ; perhaps we sigh at the 
cupidity of men who wish to improve upon Nature's 
laws ; perhaps we laugh at the defalcation which left 
others with sad reflections on the honesty of their 
fellows. 

Soon after leaving the Mushroom Beds the avenue 
again widens somewhat, though the ceiling is mainly 
low. But in the central portions the ancient waters 
had sculptured out an inverted kettle in the midst of a 
somewhat pronounced hall, and this is the rendezvous 
of myriads of bats. From the name of the genus 
which is so abundantly here represented we have given 
the locality the appellation of Vespertilio Hall. Thous- 
ands of bats, in the winter season, suspended in great 
clumps, may here be seen. A single catch one night 
gave the writer six hundred and seventy individuals, 

*A Mushroom Farm in Mammoth Cave. Scientific American, June ii, 1881. 



22 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

most of which went to the United States National 
Museum. 

At this place and beyond, the great cavern along 
which we have been passing is practically below us, 
and we move along on a floor or filling accomplished 
by ancient streams many centuries ago. We here may 
note the character of the limestone roof which makes 
the top of every hall in all portions of the cave, for 
here we are nearest it. In some places we will find it 
smooth, in others thickly studded with small stalactitic 
concretions of various shape, mimicking hundreds of 
familiar forms. Now we ascend a small hill, some 
twenty feet in height, and, passing between walls of flat 
rocks cemented with calcium carbonate, suddenly find 
ourselves confronted by the Sentinel, the lone stalactite 
which stands guard over the entrance to Olive's Bower. 

This stalactite is one of the most beautiful in the 
cave. It has joined the stalagmitic mass beneath and 
seems, like another Atlas, to hold the world of rock 
above it in place. The waters which formed it spread 
out on the roof above, and now, surrounding its base, 
are numerous smaller ones, all hollow, from which 
minute drops of water slowly drip, like ornaments of 
brilliant hue, reflecting the rays from, the dim oil lamps. 
They tip each tiny, slender tube with bright spots of 
white light, and sparkle like gems in their setting of 
dark gray stone. The stalactite itself is fluted and 
folded in a thousand fantastic ways, getting larger 
below and testifying silently to the long interval of 
time since first it began to form. 

A step further and a deep pit arrests farther progress 
for the visitor. But springing from the middle of the 
roof immediately in front of him is the most perfect 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 23 

cone-like stalactite in Mammoth Cave, yellowish white 
in color and flanked by many like it, but of less size. 
In the upper foreground are to be seen hundreds of 
smaller ones, all hollow, some uniting and making 
groups, while others preserve their integrity for a foot 
or more, as slender pipelets of lime carbonate through 
which ceaselessly trickle the tiny drops which take 
materials from the limestone above and add them 
slowly, particle by particle, to their lower extremity. 
On the floor below are building larger and flatter 
masses, very slowly, but which will, in centuries to 
come, gradually grow toward the descending ones 
above and finally meet them. 

Cautiously approaching, for the locality is not with- 
out danger, the visitor may look over the rampart of 
stalagmite and see below him, fifteen or twenty feet, 
a pool of pure water, which reflects from its mirrored 
surface the light of his lamp. This pool never gets 
full ; the drops which supply it never increase either 
in frequency or in size. Its jagged walls are fluted 
and folded in ways indescribable. Beyond are other 
stalactites, forming a gallery, and in the distance, 
among the innumerable crevices, are to be seen still 
others, but beyond examination, for the ceiling reaches 
quite to the floor and the avenue ends. It only remains 
to say that these formations are quite like those of 
White Cave, are probably connected with it, and with 
those of Mammoth Dome, but they are inaccessible 
from this locality. Olive's Bower terminates the under- 
ground journey in this direction, and we return to the 
Rotunda, not failing to note new aspects to the walls 
of Audubon Avenue as we pass them in the opposite 
direction. 



24 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

We are again in the Main Cave, having reached the 
Rotunda and turned to our right. High overhead 
springs the wonderful arch which here reaches some 
eighty feet breadth, rounding off gradually into the 
almost vertical walls along which we are passing. At 
our left the guide soon calls our attention to the Exit 
of the Corkscrew, that wonderfully intricate passage- 
way which leads to the rivers by another route than 
that which we will take to reach them. Yet, it is often 
the case that parties go this way rather than by the 
Scotchman's Trap and Fat Man's Misery, or if going 
the one way usually return the other. 

This passage is a most peculiar one, and is really 
the more or less closely connected interstices between 
huge blocks of limestone which fill a pit of vast dimen- 
sions, the bottom of which, with its wealth of gigantic 
blocks tumbled in wonderful confusion, constitutes 
Bandit Hall, described elsewhere in this Manual. It 
is a brilliant picture which one may see if he happen 
near the Corkscrew when a large party returns from 
the river route after climbing this devious passage. 
The lights appearing one after the other and forming 
an irregular procession as the carriers wind along the 
precipitous face of the Kentucky Cliffs, in which the 
opening is, afford a weird and beautiful scene. In 
the angle of the cliff and crevice rests one of the old 
water-pipes used by the miners. The guide will inform 
the weary walker that he may descend into the Main 
Cave by its means should he prefer that method to the 
rude stone way. Overhead we note the grayish lime- 
stone, mottled here and there with fantastic patches 
of oxide of manganese, to which the fancy of visitor 
and guides alike have given more or less appropriate 




COPtHIGMTeo 



The Arm Chair. 
In Olive's Bower. 



The Bridal Altar. 

The Gallery in Olive's Bower. 




in <u 

J CL, 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 2$ 

names. If the visitor is not rather imaginative he w^ill 
probably regard some of the names as less appropriate. 

At a number of places in this part of the great 
cavern the abundant evidences of water action will 
arrest the visitor's attention. Close to the pathway 
will be seen the Pigeon Boxes, a name given to a num- 
ber of small openings which are formed by the unequal 
solution of the ancient rocks. 

A short distance beyond the Exit of the Corkscrew 
will be noted the flowing outlines of a great circuit of 
the cave, while to the right may be seen the water- 
pipes of the old miners of 1812, standing to-day as 
when left by those busy toilers. The lower pipe brought 
the water from the mouth of the cave; the upper one 
led it back, forced by primitive pumps, laden with 
lime nitrate in solution. It will be interesting for the 
visitor to note the perfect preservation of these old- 
time waterways, for though they have been in the cave 
for fourscore or more years undisturbed, they still show 
no sign of decay. Try and lift one of those that lie in 
the pathway and you will be astonished at its lightness. 
Perfect in all respects, they remain here faithful moni- 
tors of a patriotism now but a reminiscence. 

Just beyond these pipes will be seen, well preserved 
in the lixiviated dirt, the tracks worn by creaking wagon 
with its load of " peter-dirt, " or perchance the foot- 
marks of patient oxen, who here bore their share of the 
toil for the maintenance of our national integrity among 
the peoples of earth. At other places, on the sides, a 
little farther along, will be noted the grooves made by 
immense hubs as they were slowly pulled through the 
old-time mud. Then come the great heaps of lixivi- 
ated dirt, telling us we are near the second of the series 



26 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

of leaching vats. But just before this we will have 
passed the Church, the name given to the great hall 
formed by the union of the main cave and Archibald 
Avenue, a broad avenue on the left, occluded at a short 
distance by gigantic rocks and cubic yards of fine yellow 
sand. Tradition has it that originally the name was 
given because here were held religious services for the 
miners, in the olden time. However this may be, occa- 
sionally the over-Sabbath visitors number among them 
a clergyman, and these gentlemen sometimes hold serv- 
ices in this locality. The writer was present on one 
such occasion, when the senior author of this Manual 
conducted such an office. The sounds of sacred song, 
swelled to great volume by the ten thousand echoes and 
reverberations from the cliffs and grottoes surrounding, 
were indescribably sweet, and all tonic errors were 
corrected by the greater symphony of the large reso- 
nator hall. 

And now we pass along the great piles of dirt, and 
when we remember that much of this material was 
brought to this locality in sacks, on the shoulders of 
slaves, from points often two or more miles away, 
obtained after great labor in removing tons of loose 
rocks and gathering the line silt, a little here and a 
little yonder, we are impressed with the toil which was 
needed to procure materials for leaching. The hillocks 
of leached earth stand, many in number, on our right 
and on our left; we wind among them, we chmb over 
them; we think, perhaps, of their makers. But our 
mood must suddenly change, for our guides hurry us 
away to the vats themselves. 

In the midst of these piles of dirt are the second 
series of vats, "hoppers" the older writers call them, 




2. BY H. C. GANTER. 



IN GOTHIC AVENUE. 

An Alcove. 
The Elephants' Heads. 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 2/ 

which well deserve careful examination. They are 
from eight to ten feet in width, and perhaps four or 
five feet longer, and four or five feet in depth when 
empty. The rude bottoms are of particular interest, 
since they show the resourceful methods of the early 
miner. Logs, split into halves and from small trees, 
were used ; these were afterward rudely grooved and 
placed in two layers, one resting on wooden supports 
with curved surface down, the second with convex 
surface uppermost and fitting into the grooves of those 
below. The waters after passing through the content 
of fine dirt were gathered by this primitive device and 
made to flow into small pits near the corners of the 
vats, whence they were conducted to a larger reservoir 
to be pumped to the entrance. The leaching accom- 
plished, the exhausted dirt was thrown into the heaps 
you will see around you and another charge placed in 
the " hoppers." 

At this point we leave the Main Cave for a short 
time and climb the broad flight of stairs, just beyond 
the vats, into Gothic Avenue. At the topmost part of 
the cliff which we have scaled is Booth's Amphithe- 
atre ; here, once upon a time, that celebrated actor 
gave a rendition of one of the dramatic characters 
which have made his name famous, to test the acoustic 
properties of this hall. He stood on the large rocks 
above us, on the right, facing in. From this circum- 
stance the place is now named. 

The avenue into which we will now advance is not 
high, nor is it very broad, except in occasional places. 
The floor is somewhat irregular, while on every hand 
are to be seen the evidences of water acting as the 
agent of solution. The propensity of former tourists 



28- MAMMOTH CAVE. 

to everywhere make a record of their visitation may 
be seen in the names smoked on every wall, in some 
few cases scratched deeply into the hard limestone. 
The only thing that most of them ever did to hand 
their names down to other times consists in this single 
act of Vandalism. Hundreds of such names will greet 
the visitor as he journeys through portions of this 
avenue. 

Among the numerous grottoes and alcoves worn out 
of the side walls by the ancient waters will be noted 
two or three of particular interest. One of these is 
the Mummy's Niche. This name has some historic 
significance. Away back in the earlier years of the 
cavern's history there was found a mummy in a neigh- 
boring cave, near the same estate. This was made the 
subject of many interesting speculations, most of which 
have little value and less basis of fact, but came to 
assume literary importance. The mummy was brought 
to Mammoth Cave and placed on exhibition in this 
avenue, and in this spot kept for some months. Later 
it found its way to Cincinnati, by way of Lexington ; 
thence it was taken to New York and exhibited, and 
finally removed to Worcester, Massachusetts, where for 
many years it remained. During the World's Fair it 
was on exhibition in the White City, and at its close 
became the property of the National Museum, and 
may now be seen in Washington. The mummy never 
properly belonged to Mammoth Cave ; the only human 
remains ever found within its limits were the woman 
and child who lie buried beneath the rocks in Hutchins' 
Narrows, near the entrance. 

The chief objects of interest in Gothic Avenue are 
the numerous stalactites, which are found, however, 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 29 

near its far end. As we advance the character of the 
walls and the ceiling changes, the smooth, white areas 
give way to rougher ones, caused by the innumerable 
smaller stalactitic masses which hang from the roof. 
We will pass many State monuments, and to these we 
will add our quota, mindful only of the fair name of our 
State. What boots it if we take from that of a rival 
State and add to our own .'' Do we not know that this 
has been done by others, perhaps from our own .-' And 
so we take two, one to repair the damage done, the 
other to add our mite to the growing column! Ken- 
tucky's Monument is the largest of them all, reaching 
to the very roof; yet be it said, Kentucky's people know 
less of their great wonder than many from far beyond 
its limits. But now the monuments are all passed, and 
we reach the first stalactitic-stalagmite of the avenue. 
It is the Post Oak Pillar, from some fancied resem- 
blance to an old oak stump deprived of its bark. 
Springing from the roof about its base are hundreds of 
smaller forms, many imitating bunches of grapes, while 
it has grown downward and long ago joined the mass 
on the floor. Neither it nor many of its fellows are 
now growing ; the avenue is one of the driest in the 
great cave, belongs to the upper levels, and the waters 
which form stalactites, except in a single instance, long 
since left its locality. The Pillared Castle, the Gothic 
Chapel, the Pillar of Hercules, the largest group of 
stalactites in the cave, Pompey and Caesar, the Wasps' 
Nests, the Elephants' Heads, Wilkins' Arm-Chair, all 
come in rapid succession, and are suggestive of caprice 
unrivaled in naming the several objects. Fancy, 
mythologic lore, caprice, sentiment, history, all have 
contributed to the nomenclature employed, and not 



30 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

always with best results. The eternal fitness of things 
has not always been kept steadily in view. 

The Pillar of Hercules is a great matted series of 
stalactites which have grown entirely to the masses of 
stalagmite on the bottom, though the group is by no 
means solid. Aside from its size one could hardly 
imagine what suggested the name. Similar in its 
formation, but yet quite widely distinct in its integral 
members, appears next the Bridal Altar, in which thus 
far twelve weddings have occurred. The writer for- 
bears to tell you the story which the guide will surely 
repeat at this place, for something must be left to the 
faithful pilot who has taken you thus far on your jour- 
ney. Suffice it to say that the altar is made up of three 
separate stalactites, very large above and rather small 
below, which are so placed as to form a triangular 
chamber between them. One of these is the officiating 
clergyman, the others the chief actors in an important 
part of life's drama. 

Having passed the Bridal Altar we come to the end 
of the usually traveled route and find ourselves on the 
brow of a steep hill, but looking out into the impene- 
trable darkness beyond. When we become accustomed 
to the gloom the faint illumination of our lamps dis- 
closes a deep pit before us, backed by a great hill of 
sandstone to which the name of Limitation Hill is 
given. This name was suggested by the fact that the 
great avenue into which we have entered is occluded 
by the mass of sandstone debris which forms the hill, 
a fact to be seen at one or another place in every 
great avenue of the cave. Projecting over the edge of 
the cliff on which we are standing is a long and slender 
rock, the Lover's Leap, though the name is not sug- 




YRIGHTEO 1896 BY H C. CANTER. 



Annette Dome. 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 3 1 

gested by the occasional use of the Bridal Altar, near 
at hand. From the point of this rock the illumination, 
by means of Bengal lights, shows a wild and tumultu- 
ously grouped mass of rocks, and down them leads 
a narrow pathway which parties sometimes take to 
other wonders below. This Hill of Difficulty leads 
to a narrow opening in the face of the cliff, fifty feet 
below us and on the left. 

The opening, which can not be seen from the brow 
of the hill, is high but narrow, and suddenly appears 
before us in the face of the solid rock. This is 
Elbow Crevice, much like the Fat Man's Misery, but 
lofty and the walls wrinkled and folded in many fan- 
tastic ways by the waters which have long since ceased 
to fall here. The narrow pathway in the crevice 
skirts a shallow but ragged pit, the first we have seen 
upon this journey, called Joseph's Pit. Its ragged edge 
so hides the bottom that the passer-by fails to note the 
jagged sides of the pit unless he go close to the margin, 
which is, however, not without some danger. He then 
learns that he is passing over a thin slab of limestone 
which separates him from the space of the pit; but one 
is reassured when he discovers the bottom at some ten 
feet below. Taking for a short distance the low avenue 
on the right we come to a limpid pool, in the bottom of 
a shallow basin, and this is the Cooling Tub. The 
yellow sands which make the fioor here are suitable 
homes for the larval forms of the blind beetles which 
here abound, and which may be seen scurrying away, 
disturbed by the heat of our lamps. In the waters of 
the Cooling Tub careful search may reveal a few snow- 
white crustaceans crawling over the bottom, but without 
eyes. Back again into the end of the crevice we come 



32 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

to the beginning of a larger hall, three-quarters of a 
mile in length, where is the first dome we have seen, 
Napoleon's Dome. The huge rock under it and around 
which we pass is Gatewood's Dining Table, and is a 
great block of limestone detached from the very mid- 
dle of the apex above. We are here immediately under 
the Elephants' Heads of Gothic Avenue, and have 
passed under the Bridal Altar. The avenue along 
which we are to go is Gratz Avenue, entirely distinct 
as a geological feature from Gothic Avenue, of which it 
has usually been regarded a continuation. But it is at 
a much lower level and far later geologically than the 
one above us. A short distance beyond we come to 
Lake Purity, a small pool of water which has long been 
known to visitors to the cave by another inappropriate 
name bestowed by Doctor Ward, one of the first 
explorers of the cavern. So well deserved is the 
modern name that the visitor will certainly walk into it 
unless the guides check him. No breeze ever ruffles its 
mirrored surface, and no drop of water ever falls into it 
from above. It is supplied slowly by an almost imper- 
ceptible stream on one side, and this rarely ever raises 
its level. Twice has the writer walked into it, though 
perfectly familiar with its surroundings. Past the little 
lake is the Cinder Bed, well named indeed, and some- 
times, like the Arm-Chair of the gallery above, often 
connected with the name of his Satanic Majesty and 
then known as the Devil's Ash-Pile. It is a mass of 
small and rough limestone concretions or stalagmitic 
masses, cemented together by carbonate of lime. 

For a long distance the avenue winds now to the 
right, now to the left, keeping almost uniform height 
and width, with floor of rough rocks and broken stones. 







The Acute Angle. 

The Standing Rocks. 




COPYRIGHTED 189.1 BY H C. GANTER 



M:<- .--uitue. 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 33 

until the sounds of falling waters reach our ears. The 
visitor will pause to listen and to look. Whence they 
come he knows not, and this fact makes the sounds 
appear more uncanny still. But after he clambers 
down a small cliff he will wind suddenly to the right, 
and the low entrance to Annette's Dome is before him. 
Entering this dome he will have his first view of the 
work of falling waters. Merrily dashing from a hole in 
the face of the dome twenty or more feet above him 
and falling in a hundred sprays comes Shaler's Brook, 
running swiftly across the floor of the dome. Take up 
some of the pebbles in the bottom of this brook. Those 
soft and snow-white objects that yield to the slightest 
touch are the blind leeches which only have been 
found in this place and in Richardson's Spring. Per- 
chance a half dozen larger and darker objects with 
legs will move hastily after the drop of water which 
circles the stone as you turn it. These are the same 
kind of crustaceans as you saw in the Cooling Tub. 

But look up and around you. The walls are fluted 
and scored as by some gigantic graving tool. Here 
and there the harder layers of limestone jut out as 
sharp and serrated bosses partially obscuring the view 
toward the top. The dome will be seen to widen at 
the bottom and to shade ofi into a conical top, after 
the manner of all others in Mammoth Cave. The 
incessant song of the little brook makes a music here 
which is to be heard nowhere else in the cavern. But 
what becomes of it .'' Wait a little. 

As the visitor turns to go from this dome at the left 
and low down near the floor, the side wall will be seen 
to have disappeared. On bended knee it is possible to 
pass into a smaller dome, adjoining Annette's, and then 



34 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

we hear the silvery splash of the waters in regions yet 
lower down. It is sad to think we can not follow the 
little brook and see more of the mysteries of this lower 
world. Out now we go, and as we are about to 
climb again the little cliff down which we descended 
we catch again the sound of falling waters, but this 
time with increased volume. Squeezing into a small 
opening under the little cliff on the right we may throw 
a light down a small crevice and find ourselves hanging 
on two thin sheets of limestone above a large dome, 
the bottom of which is filled with water and the sides 
of which are too remote to be seen. This is Lee's 
Cistern, and receives the waters of Shaler's Brook after 
a wild plunge of nearly seventy feet. The cistern is 
one of a large group of domes and pits whose more 
intimate acquaintance the visitor will make after a 
little, but at another place. 

Leaving the dome and cistern behind us we retrace 
our steps to the Main Cave, by way of Gothic Avenue, 
but will first note the great hill of sandstone debris 
which occludes Gratz Avenue as we look on our right. 
Above it is a dome filled with huge blocks and sand- 
stone debris; it is inaccessible. That hill is a famous 
place on which to collect "cave crickets," and an 
occasional specimen of blind myriapod may be taken. 

We have now retraced our way, and are again in the 
Main Cave. As we pass along this portion of the great 
avenue we will note the lofty walls and the grotesque 
figures of animals which the deposits of manganese 
oxide on the walls and roof rudely simulate. Some of 
these are fairly imitative of the objects after which 
they are named; others require rather a vivid imagina- 
tion to see the object supposed to be indicated. From 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 35 

this point on to the very end of the Main Cave there is 
very httle variety in the walls which bound the avenue, 
but there is constant succession of instructive local- 
ities and marvelous views which serve well as means of 
learning the real history of the cavern. 

After walking a short distance beyond the entrance 
to the Gothic Avenue we come across the first large 
blocks of limestone which appear in the Main Cave. 
These are the Standing Rocks, so named from the fact 
that in falling they struck on their edge, and remain 
fixed in that position. The older name of the earliest 
explorers is suggestive of their aspect, for to them they 
appeared as a leg-of-mutton sail, and hence arose the 
original name of the Sail-Boat. Later guides and all 
recent visitors know them simply as Standing Rocks, 
and by that name must they now be called. That they 
were detached from the ceiling is certain, though they 
are vastly greater in size than most rocks which are 
found in the avenues and derived from the ceiling. 

An accident discovered the remaining feature of 
interest before we reach the great sarcophagus-like 
rock which is near us on our right. This discovery 
came when two parties, one going out, the other enter- 
ing the cavern, passed in this locality. An illumination 
was in progress near the Saltpeter Vats, when, looking 
back, a statue was discovered as white and distinct as 
any Lot saw when his wife disobeyed the injunction 
and turned her gaze toward her old home. It is not 
salt which we notice but an illumined face of the cave, 
cut off from full view by two interfering walls. The 
old-time style of the colonial dame appears before our 
very eyes, and "Martha Washington's Statue" com- 
\nands our admiration from its exceeding fidelity to the 



36 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

profile of that distinguished "first lady of the land." 
While this object is but an illusion, it nevertheless 
interests us greatly and adds to our enjoyment from its 
very human aspect. 

On the right hand, lying close to the right wall of 
the cave, the visitor will note an immense rock, one of 
the largest single rocks known in the cavern, to which 
the name of Steamboat was formerly given. But this 
old name did not long survive ; it was hardly suggestive 
enough of the underground world to suit the fancy of 
the visitor, and then, too, its resemblance to a boat was 
little indeed. But it does closely imitate, on near view 
from the path, an immense sarcophagus, or rather 
perhaps we should say casket, for the burial of the 
dead. But did not the giants of old, that peopled our 
boy's world and all fairyland, dwell in the earth, and 
in caverns bristling with bones of victims and other 
suggestions of horrid underground feasts .-* What more 
natural than that here should be buried one at least of 
that ancient race of giants, and so tourists have ever 
since told us, and what all the world says is so must be 
so ! We will accept the new name, manifestly so great 
an improvement on the older one, and the Giant's 
Coffin this rock shall forever be. But go up close to 
it and carefully note it. You will discover that it is an 
immense block of limestone, torn from the adjacent 
wall, and falling but short distance has become lodged 
in its present position. If you measure it a length of 
forty-five feet will result, its width will vary from twelve 
to fifteen, its height will be eighteen feet. Its weight 
is over two thousand tons. We will pass behind it 
later on, as we go to the pits and domes that are yet 
ahead of us, and be able to see this monster rock from 




COPYRIGHTEO 1992 BY H. C. GANTER. 



The Star Chamber. 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 3/ 

three sides at least. Had it never fallen, the Way 
to the Pits and Domes would forever have remained 
unknown, but on breaking away from the wall it dis- 
closed a low arch and narrow crevice through which 
the tourist winds into the devious Labyrinth. Over 
the coffin may be seen the emblem of the ant-eater, 
one of the most perfect of the color imitations in the 
cave. 

Shortly after we pass the Giant's Coffin we find the 
great avenue along which we are journeying turn 
suddenly to the left at a place called the Acute Angle. 
Here one of the very remarkable things of the cave 
appears, and that is the sharp angle made by the 
underground waters in dissolving out this passage-way. 
The angle made is less than seventy degrees, about 
sixty we should judge, and does not often find an 
imitator even in surface streams. The immense hall, 
seen by illumination in both directions from this place, 
appears to fine advantage, and our impressions of the 
greatness of the cavern grow apace. 

Beyond the angle a short distance there suddenly 
comes into view the first of the two stone cottages 
which were built here a half century or more ago. 
A number of poor souls, suffering under that dread 
malady, consumption, and under the advice of phy- 
sicians who appear to have had little knowledge of 
the real nature of tuberculosis, thought to find relief and 
possibly complete health in the cave. It was noticed 
that the water-pipes which the old miners had used 
and the timbers of their leaching vats were still in 
absolute preservation ; it was reasoned from this 
circumstance, coupled with the fable that organic 
substances left in the cave do not decay, that the 



38 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

locality offered especially suitable homes for these 
people. So a number of them came, two dwelling in 
the rude stone houses which we see, the rest in tents 
located a little farther on toward the Star Chamber. 
What hopeful conversations these hard and cold stone 
walls may have listened to we may never know. But 
hope springs eternal in the human breast, and one 
doubts not that it found place here too. What with 
light work and much exercise, with song, conversation, 
hopeful questioning, and eager anticipation, the dark 
days, which knew no sunshine, wore slowly away. 
This dread disease, which may find momentary respite 
in sunshine and genial warmth, had fastened itself on 
these poor innocents, and they daily became weaker. 
For one the end soon came, but at the mouth of the 
cave, whither he had gone when he was certain that 
the end was near. A brief space of time, several 
weeks only intervening, and the last one was laid 
away in the final sleep. The curious visitor may learn 
who they were and when they died from the rude 
stone cairns which are in the old and abandoned grove 
back of the hotel garden. Their bones were removed 
in later years, but the memorial tablets are still there, 
gruesome reminders of the end of the brief life spent 
in the old cabins on which we are looking. Perhaps the 
visitor sighs when he hears the sad story, perhaps he 
gives it no further thought. In what mood should we 
take it ? 

And now we come to the crowning glory of this 
route, one made famous by many writers both in prose 
and in song. As we wend our way along the smooth 
and well-traveled path we find ourselves at length at a 
small declivity, while on beyond stretches without end 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 39 

the great avenue, sweeping to the right and lost in one 
magnificent archway of absolute blackness. The roof, 
too, seems to have left us, and we gaze upward into 
nnfathomed night. The guides announce the "Star 
Chamber," and proceed directly to make more real the 
illusion of the place. All our lamps are either removed 
or extinguished, and for the first time in our lives, 
mayhap, we may really know what blackness is. If 
the party will remain absolutely still, the darkness of 
the place will become oppressive. A little shrinking 
nearer the guide or a trusted friend when once we 
realize how dark the place and how helpless we are! 
But our guides told us to look up when they left us 
alone, and we look. Slowly, as we become accustomed 
to the place the roof seems to lighten a little, stars 
come out one by one, twinkling merrily here and blink- 
ing at us in evident delight yonder, then a comet shoots 
across the mimic sky, and the glory of the milky way 
brings from our too-willing lips expressions of surprise 
and pleasure. The illusion is perfect. The near ceil- 
ing, heavily coated with manganese dioxide, has been 
pierced here and there with fairy snow crystals of 
gypsum, and these have reflected the dim light of the 
lamps of the guides who left us to enter a small 
passage-way on our left. The snow-clouds were made 
to appear, and night has come to us again. The spell 
is broken; we are, after all, in a world of illusions. But 
now the footfalls of the guides coming in the distance 
reach our ears, and, with some of them, a bucolic 
concert of familiar sounds, the blending of the barking 
of the house-dog, the crowing of the cock, a feline 
battle, the lowing of cattle, for a little time conspire to 
make us think we are still above ground. But now our 



40 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

ventriloquist guide has rejoined us, and we are told that 
the end of the route in the Main Cave has been reached. 

We retrace our way to the Giant's Coffin with more 
than our usual thought, perhaps. We are prepared to 
understand Emerson's thoughtful essay on "Illusions," 
written after a personal visit to this cavern, of all the 
glories of which the Star Chamber seems to have 
impressed him the most deeply. 

In the earlier days, and occasionally now, through 
special arrangement, parties frequently went beyond 
the Star Chamber to Chief City, then called the Tem- 
ple, which is the largest single chamber in the congeries 
of caverns which form the subject of this Manual. 
The visitor who passes beyond the Star Chamber 
will find many objects of interest ; if he should be in 
search of geological information relating to processes 
which have conspired to produce the cave he must 
make the journey to the end. Some features, men- 
tioned by Doctor Hovey, are there to be noted which 
can not elsewhere be seen in the whole cavern. 

The low arch behind the Giant's Coffin, to which 
we give the name of Dante's Gateway, is but slightly 
higher than the bottom of the sarcophagus itself, and 
the visitor wall not fail to catch a view of the rear 
surface. From this he will learn the true thickness of 
the rock, which is eighteen feet. The passage-way 
between it and the wall from which it became detached 
is quite narrow ; a series of rude steps lead us down 
and into a circular room, the bottom of which is cov- 
ered with fine yellow sand mixed at places with a 
quantity of small pebbles derived from a thin stratum 
of conglomerate which appears between the sandstone 
capping of the region and the Subcarboniferous lime- 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 4I 

stone in which the cave is situated. This is the Wooden 
Bowl Room, resembling greatly an inverted wooden 
bowl of old-time pattern. Local tradition has it that 
a wooden aboriginal bowl was once found in this place, 
whence the origin of the name. The writer is, how- 
ever, disposed not to accept this origin of the name 
but to suggest that it came from the resemblance 
referred to. Very much of unwarranted ethnologic 
statement is attached to this cavern ; the various stories 
we hear must be sifted with the greatest care. 

To the left you will note a low archway with well- 
trodden pathway ; this is the beginning of Ganter 
Avenue, an account of which is given by Doctor Hovey 
in this Manual. To your right is a small opening, 
partially in the floor of the room and partially in the 
base wall. This is the old "Dog Hole," now called 
the Steeps of Time. Down this we will go with the 
greatest care by a rude stone stairway, our uncertain 
feet sustained by a firm grasp on the rude wooden 
railing placed on the right. At all seasons of the year 
the snow-white festoons of Mucor, a low order of 
fungus, hanging at times in shreds a foot or more in 
length, at others covering the railing and the rocks 
surrounding with dense white patches of cottony fibers, 
give to the place its appearance of age or antiquity. 
The steps are veritably hoary with years! 

Safely down we are in the low and irregular Way to 
Pits and Domes. The entomologist of the party should 
here keep wide open eyes, for this ground is famous for 
collecting. On the old timbers which he will find near 
the Way, under the damp, flat rocks, running along the 
white walls or leaping away from the warmth of his 
lamp will go innumerable crickets and white eyeless 



42 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

spiders and thousand-legged worms and brown blind 
beetles. Down a short hill the first water on the 
Route of Pits and Domes is seen in Richardson's Spring, 
a locality of the greatest interest. The work of running 
water will be noticed on every hand. The minute 
stream which slowly fills the little pool called a spring 
has quietly dug for itself a narrow channel, and illus- 
trates the process which on gigantic scale has produced 
the cave itself. The spring contains many small 
crustaceans, and the flat rocks around shelter many 
interesting forms of blind insects. These will be more 
completely listed in another place in this Manual. 

Soon after passing this spring, on the right, will be 
discovered Side-Saddle Pit, so named from its supposed 
resemblance to a saddle. Above it rises Minerva's 
Dome, while into it falls, drop by drop, the waters 
which are enlarging it and making it to rival its near-at- 
hand fellow. This is the smallest of the pits and domes 
which the visitor will see on this route. But its walls 
should be closely examined, and he will discover how 
beautifully fluted and scored they are. At the bottom, 
fifty feet down, are masses of rocks detached from the 
dome above, which rises thirty-five feet above the 
observer. Just beyond the pit will be noticed a low 
avenue, Calypso's Avenue, which leads off to the left. 
This is never visited except by those who are veritable 
cave explorers, for it is dangerous in the extreme. The 
avenue leads to Covered Pit, a short distance away, 
and beyond to Scylla and Charybdis, of which, however, 
more will be said in another place. At one locality, 
about five hundred feet within this avenue, the floor 
suddenly divides into two halves, and the visitor crawls 
along — the ceiling is so low he can not walk — with 



/ 



■^. 



,/ // , 'r; /^^' 



^Jt /J 



f 




Plan ot Harrison Hall. 



':.'-^^;?^^ 



jrMy:^M^. 



50 ScdJ^- tf ffet 



. . 1 ■ . ■ , 



15*. , / 







/^ '^'yj', ^ ^y * 



Section of Harrison Hall. 




Plan of the Labyrinth. 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 43 

this narrow cleft slowly widening as he advances. Its 
edges get thinner; passing a lamp between the margins 
we find that we are above a great pit seventy-five feet 
deep, the boundary walls of which we can not see. We 
discover that our floor, the roof of the pit, is but a thin 
shell of limestone, and, impressed with the discovery, 
we hasten back. But still again the desire to know 
what is on the other side takes possession of us, and 
again we venture. This time slowly we move, certain 
of our way, and pass the Covered Pit to find ourselves 
gazing into blackness at the end of a beautifully arched 
avenue in which one may stand upright. We have 
reached the limit in this direction. The sounds of fall- 
ing waters make music here, and we know that cave- 
making is in actual progress around, above, beneath us. 
By and by we shall reach the bottom of this locality, 
when its true meaning will be disclosed. 

To the group of pits and domes which constitute this 
portion of the cavern Doctor H. C. Hovey has given, 
in 1889, the name of Harrison Hall, after the then 
President of the United States. The relations of these 
intimately connected domes may be gathered from the 
accompanying illustrations showing their ground plan 
and vertical section, correct in its main details. This 
portion of the cavern abounds in these great chambers, 
and, judging from the surface configuration over this 
section of the cave, many more similar domes are in 
juxtaposition and may be connected below. Since the 
bottom of each is partially filled with debris from the 
walls and roof, it is impossible to make one's way from 
Harrison Hall into the chambers which are connected 
with it; but the waters, which sometimes gather in great 
volume in the bottom of Scylla and Charybdis, testify 



44 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

to intimate connection with the rivers and the lowest 
drainage levels of the cave. 

It is but a short distance to the Bottomless Pit from 
the beginning of Calypso's Avenue. But before it is 
reached, the entrance to the Labyrinth, in the very 
floor of the way, will be discerned, and over it a broad 
and low archway, through the sands of which a new 
road has recently (1896) been cut. This is Darnall's 
"Way, and leads directly to Gorin's Dome, from the end 
of which the most magnificent view in the cavern may 
be had. When the writer re-discovered this passage- 
way, two years ago, it had remained unvisited for many 
years, and its existence had been forgotten by nearly 
all connected with the cavern. The sublime view from 
the edge of the mighty precipice, both to the right and 
left, should be seen by every visitor. Opposite the 
entrance at the dome end hangs an alabaster curtain in 
a thousand sweeping folds, perpendicular to the very 
bottom, one hundred and nineteen feet below. Small 
streams of water are still engaged in cutting their way 
into the side walls, and the process of enlargement is 
slowly progressing. Since this dome-pit is typical of 
all in Mammoth Cave, and of dome structure in general 
in limestone caverns, it is worthy of more complete 
description. And this we now attempt. 

The walls of this great pit change direction several 
times in their course of sixty feet, sweeping around 
into sigmoid curves in such manner that from no 
accessible place can the whole be seen at once. The 
point of vantage is the bottom, reached from the 
farthest side of the pit by a dangerous and irregular 
well-like opening, with almost vertical walls, from 
which springs an occasional boss. Taking advantage 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 45 

of these the careful chmber, by pressing knees and 
elbows against the sides, may descend a distance of 
some fifty-five feet and find himself on a mud-covered 
shelf, with greater danger still ahead. Carefully work- 
ing one's way down this hill, which can not be seen 
from above, a bed of sand, when there is low water in 
the river which sweeps along its margin, is reached. 
On this was found an old boat, much decayed, indicat- 
ing that this stream, which flows with a current of 
about four miles an hour by measurement with floating 
papers carefully timed, has some connection with the 
Echo River, or may be the real underground river of 
which the Echo is but a sluggishly flowing branch. 
At all events the bottom of Garvin's Pit, on the extreme 
left of the visitor, has a large underground river skirting 
its margins. But the view upward from this point is 
grand indeed. Vertical walls rising one hundred and 
fifty-nine feet to the very top of the dome, with here 
and there a boss which on careful closer examination 
proves to be masses of coral, and these throw long 
shadows toward the top which move and wave in long 
black lines as the lamps flicker and swing ; the drops 
of pure water, which like diamonds hang from the small 
pendant stalactites which in places cover the sides, the 
merry patter of several small cascades which come 
back to us from the river hall in a thousand small 
echoes, and the stillness otherwise, make the bottom 
of Gorin's Dome of real interest. Then, too, this is 
the only dome in the cave which reaches from the 
uppermost level to the level of the rivers. It is, there- 
fore, the only place where the complete vertical range 
of the cave can be determined, an important factor in 
its careful study. The rock is here all oolite, and this 



46 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

seems to aid the waters in their work of solution. 
The dome is named from one of the original owners of 
the cave, Mr. Frank Gorin ; the pit after William 
Garvin, the guide, who alone knew of the passage-way 
to the bottom, and who was its discoverer. 

The width of this place varies from fourteen to 
twenty feet ; its extreme length is about fifty-five feet ; 
its outline irregularly dumb-bell shaped. It broadens 
toward the bottom, after the manner of all the pits in 
the cave, and besides the mud and sand brought in 
at flood by the river, the bottom is composed of great 
hmestone blocks. The bottom, or shelf part first 
reached, has a great quantity of old timbers derived 
from former structures that have been thrown in to 
get rid of them. These constitute a famous place for 
blind beetles and myriapods, and we secured large 
numbers of them. 

Returning to the Way of Pits and Domes, we pass 
along the margin of a narrow and deep crevasse worn 
into the solid rock and connecting, formerly, Gorin's 
Dome with the Bottomless Pit. We will visit this after 
our return from the regions beyond the pit which is 
now at hand. A bridge, the Bridge of Sighs, enables 
the visitor to stand over the very middle of this abyss, 
from the bottom of which comes up to him the sound 
of falling water. At most seasons of the year the 
bottom of the pit contains only old bridge timbers and 
large masses of rock, with some very smooth banks of 
mud. At others, when the subterranean rivers are at 
flood, the left bottom portion is filled with water. This 
shows an intimate connection with the Echo or under- 
ground rivers, and also indicates that the commonly 
seen bottom of the pit is not as low down as Garvin's 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 4/ 

Pit. From the bottom of this pit, for notwithstanding 
its name it has one, the view is rivaled only by that of 
Gorin's Dome. Rising sheer above us to a height of 
one hundred and forty-five feet is Shelby's Dome, the 
top of the Bottomless Pit, named after the first Gov- 
ernor of Kentucky. The bridge overhead is garlanded 
and festooned with pendent masses of show-white 
Miicor, while the light of the lamps we leave burning 
on the bridge show us the character of the fluted and 
folded walls, in most places absolutely vertical. We 
think of Stephen Bishop, the colored guide, who first 
crossed this place in 1840, his support being a slender 
cedar sapling, and we wonder not a little at his 
temerity. But that adventurous act not only made 
possible a visit to its bottom but was quickly followed 
by the discovery of the great River Hall, the Echo 
River, and all the other glories which have been so well 
described by my fellow-worker. Doctor Hovey. And 
not only this, but the exploitation of the two large pits 
which are connected with the Bottomless Pit, and which 
altogether constitute Harrison Hall, first described, and 
their relations made out by Doctor Hovey, and needing 
change in but few particulars from his original account. 
Do you ask how we reached the bottom } On your 
right hand, immediately after entering River Hall, you 
will note a small opening leading into an avenue which 
is nearly closed by a huge rock. Follow this a few 
hundred yards and you will find it branching. Do not 
take the right-hand branch, for that will lead you along 
a narrow avenue, here widening a little, and there with 
bottom close to top, and end at last in a small stream 
of flowing water that connects directly with the River 
Styx, and this bars further progress. Take the left- 



48 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

hand route, climb a low precipice, work your way care- 
fully along, for the way is dangerous, and you will enter 
the pit two thirds of the way down. The shelf on 
which you stand is narrow, muddy, and dangerous. To 
your right will be Charybdis, and beyond it the edge of 
Scylla appears in view. On the left is a difficult and 
muddy hill, down which it is possible to go with care, 
and you will eventually reach the bottom, if, like a fly, 
you can almost cling to the side. But the rough 
concretions will help, and the old timbers which are 
found here in numbers will assist. The bottom is 
reached at last, and the paradise of the insect hunter is 
attained. The lamps far above appear but as bright 
specks in the eternal gloom. Around you and about 
you are the evidences of fearful ruin, places whence 
the immense blocks of limestone on which you are 
now standing have been detached, while over your 
head, swinging from two small points on the surround- 
ing walls of the pit, is an immense block which seems 
in momentary danger of falling and crushing you. It 
will fall some time, will continue its headlong flight 
toward the bottom, but it will only be after years of 
patient solution yet, when the points will be dissolved 
away and the rock left free to fall. 

After crossing the Bridge of Sighs the visitor will 
note an enlargement of the avenue and numerous large 
blocks of limestone. This is Reveller's Hall, suggestive 
of the dinner parties which were formerly held in this 
place. Since the River Route was discovered this hall 
has been abandoned for lunching purposes. To the 
left, just beyond, is a narrow passage-way leading into 
Fat Man's Misery and to River Hall, discovered by 
Bishop in 1840. But just before the narrow and 




COPYRIGHTED 1S93 BY H. C. 0»NTER 



The Bottomless Pit. 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 49 

devious Fat Man's Misery is reached, and before the 
Scotchman's Trap is passed, a narrow passage-way on 
the left will lead to the middle of the wall of the 
Bottomless Pit. From this point of view one may 
look down into the pit on the left, and into Charybdis 
on the right. In front, but twenty or more feet above 
him, is a well-rounded arch, which is the termination 
of Calypso's Avenue, along which we pass and over the 
Covered Pit to get our best view of Scylla. 

There are two objects of interest beyond Reveller's 
Hall ; these are all in the continuation of the avenue 
which now is called Pensico Avenue, along which we 
came to the pit. The first of these is Resonator Hall, 
where the avenue crosses either another avenue lower 
down or the visitor passes above a dome in the strata 
below him. Whatever the real explanation, the pro- 
duction of certain tones at this place comes back to us 
from below in volume increased a thousand fold, and 
rolls and reverberates along the secret galleries be- 
neath. Then comes Wild Hall, where the large rocks 
are strewn about in abandoned profusion, and among 
them we carefully wend our way. Next we come to 
the Grand Crossing, where once two great subterranean 
streams, at slightly different levels, flowed one above 
the other. They dissolved away the partition floor of 
the one which was the roof of the other, and now give 
us unique illustration of the ways underground waters 
will f^ow. At the end of this avenue is Angelica's 
Bower, and just before we reach it the large dry 
stalactite, the only large one on this route, fancifully 
known as the Pineapple Bush. From the walls and 
sides of the grotto hang numerous small stalactites, 
and these have caused the name of the Hanging Grove 



50 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

to be applied to them. The way ends in this grotto, 
and we retrace our steps to the cis-pontine region, to 
take our final side trip to Gorin's Dome and the regions 
beyond. 

As we go backward beyond the Bottomless Pit we 
note a narrow passage-way in the floor of the avenue 
and on our left. This leads down a steep hill of sand, 
obtained from the way over its top to Gorin's Dome. 
The walls are smooth in some places and furrowed and 
roughened in others. On them may be found, at all 
seasons of the year, innumerable crickets, and, farther 
along, an occasional myriapod. We are now in the 
Labyrinth, the most intricate series of small channels, 
pits, and domes known in the cave. As we wind along 
the wall on our left recedes, and crossing a rudely con- 
structed bridge we stand under a small dome, above a 
pit now filled with fallen debris, but a few feet, five or 
six only, from the great Gorin's Dome. Up a short 
flight of stairs we proceed, down another on our right, 
turn to the left under the way we just came, and find 
ourselves at the Window. For many years this was the 
only way in which the tourist might see the great dome 
here disclosed to view, and the exhibition is wonderful 
indeed. Directly in front, hanging in fold after fold 
from the roof above as in tiers, is a great curtain of 
limestone covered with incrustation of alabaster. It is 
limned against the intense blackness beyond, bending 
suddenly on our left and appearing to shade off into 
deepest gloom. The splash of falling waters alone 
comes to us from below, where is the swiftly but 
silently flowing river on whose bosom no man has yet 
sailed. Its inky waters can not be seen from this place, 
but we know that it is there. From the farther side 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 5 1 

drops a little waterfall, and this splashes its way down 
the muddy hill at the bottom to join the river below it. 
The Dome appears from this point to be a large horse- 
shoe curve, but it is, in fact, sigmoid in outline and 
rudely dumb-bell shaped. The guides will illumine this 
view from another window still higher up, through 
which, if the visitor has a strong hand and nerve, and 
is a good climber, may be had a glorious view some- 
what higher than any other the cave affords. But 
water everywhere drips in this dome and pit, and the 
attempt to make the climb is not without danger. 

Returning to the narrow passage-way from which 
we diverged to go to the Window, we pass over a bridge 
across a rugged pit, descend a short hill, and wind 
along a devious and intricate series of channels which 
we will call from this on Hovey's Ramble. This name 
is bestowed in honor of the senior author of this 
Manual, whose work in American caverns is so well 
and so favorably known. It is a fitting tribute to his 
tireless interest in this great cavern and in testimony 
of the pioneer scientific work which he did that his 
name be affixed to these Daedalian passages. Several 
interesting localities to the student of geology are here. 
They are instructive in the highest degree, and must be 
seen if the real work of cave-making is to be under- 
stood. To this point we have seen little of the actual 
work of water ; only its results have been noted. Now 
we are to see it at work as a graving tool in one of the 
newest portions of the cave, newest in the geological 
sense. Down a rude stairway we pursue our way, up a 
cliff, alongside a deep pit, over several sinuous lower 
channels, hanging to the sides here and leaping from 
side to side yonder, over narrow chasms, until we hear 



52 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

the rush of falling waters and find our pathway occluded 
by a huge mass of stalagmite, while pendent from the 
ceiling are beautiful, sonorous stalactites of purest onyx. 
A narrow pass leads us around and behind this bower, 
and on our left stand revealed the rough and jagged 
walls of Putnam's and just beyond Hovey's Cabinets. 
Here in the pool of water, always full, we gather a 
pocketful of "cave pearls," gaze with interest at the 
waters falling from an opening in the roof, above us 
some thirty feet, and note that the dome is made up of 
a succession of layers of flat rocks which have differently 
resisted the action of the solvent waters. Every dome 
we have studied, if we could see their tops, would 
present exactly this aspect, and from it we learn that 
solution alone has been the active agent that made the 
cavern. Several smaller domes at this locality present 
substantially the same appearance. They are connected 
by a series of small channels in which running waters 
may always be seen ; from the roofs of some and open- 
ings in the sides of others small rills pour forth to add 
their mite, and might, to the work in hand. 

Passing along the rough walk the cave here and 
there broadens, then narrows, the roof rises away from 
the floor at times, while at others it approaches quite 
close to it. At every point the fitful light of the visitor's 
lamp brings into relief projections of infinite form and 
makes deeper the dark hollows between the rock 
bosses. The incessant play and change of light and 
shadow afford unwearied interest even where the walls, 
for some distance, otherwise offer little that is attract- 
ive. A half mile or less of this sort of thing and on 
our left, close up to the ceiling, in a widened area, we 
come to the end of the Ramble. This portion of the 



THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. 53 

cave is continually wet, and the path sometimes lies 
through small pools. Last comes a great bed of yellow 
sand, in a large round chamber at the end. Did we 
say sand ? Take up some of the minute grains in the 
hand and examine them carefully. They are round as 
shot, infinitely smaller, and uniform in size. Break 
off a fragment from that overhanging rock. Ah ! We 
have it. This is not sand but oolite. The walls 
around us are oolitic limestone, and the solvent action 
of the waters has separated the tiny grains, and we 
thought them sand. But so thought others before us. 
The peculiar character of this limestone and the facility 
with which water dissolves its cementing material 
makes very treacherous this portion of the cavern. 
Do not trust the bosses on the walls for foot-rests ; 
they are as likely to give way beneath your weight as 
remain. Be attentive to your guide here and you will 
learn much of the processes now employed in making 
this portion of the cave. Here the route must, per- 
force, end, and from this point we retrace our steps to 
the Labyrinth, and through it, the guide, our Daedalus, 
takes us to safer grounds. 



THE MAIN CAVE ROUTE. 

FROM STAR CHAMBER TO CHIEF CITY, AND BEYOND. 



BY HORACE CARTER HOVEY. 



THE term "Grand Gallery," or "Main Cave," was 
applied by early explorers to the gigantic Broad- 
way of this subterranean metropolis, extending 
from the Rotunda to Ultima Thule. It is impossible to 
reach any avenue, dome, or chamber in the cavern with- 
out first traversing a portion of this central thoroughfare. 
The Main Cave, with its side-cuts, is three miles long, 
and is worthy of ranking as a route by itself. But it 
suits the convenience of the management to exhibit the 
first half of it in connection with the Pit and Dome 
Route; and accordingly that part of it is described by 
Doctor Call as far as the Star Chamber. What is 
now undertaken is to describe the remainder of the 
Main Cave, from the Star Chamber to the Chief City, 
and beyond it to the terminus, where the massive wall 
forbids further progress- 
After leaving the hall of constellations and marvelous 
transformation scenes, the gray cavern gallery makes a 
majestic sweep to the right. The black ceiling studded 
with stars changes to a mottled canopy, like a mackerel 
sky. Soon these clouds float away, and the remnants 
of black oxide of manganese coat only the fringes of the 
roof. The floor is encumbered with a myriad flat lime- 
stone slabs, every one of which tests one's equilibrium 
by tilting in a different direction, except where they 
have been adjusted so as to make a safe and conven- 
ient footpath. No stooping nor crawling has to be done, 



THE MAIN CAVE ROUTE. 55 

and the floor is everywhere absolutely dry. There is no 
danger, even of missing one's footing, unless one chooses 
to forsake the beaten way and ventures to see-saw over 
the rocking flakes that cover the floor in such endless 
confusion. 

The guides point out many curious objects as we 
walk along. One of these is an enormous rock seventy 
feet long, formerly called the Keel Boat, but more 
recently christened the Whale. It is " very like a 
whale," and rivals in its dimensions the Giant's Coffin. 
A huge plate of standing limestone is labeled the Devil's 
Looking-glass. There are several "side-cuts," passages 
lower than the Main Cave, and that return into it after 
devious windings. These are never visited now, though 
they were ransacked by the miners for " peter-dirt. " 

Proctor's Arcade and Kinney's Arena are merely 
enlargements of the Main Cave, highly symmetrical 
arched passages, with lofty ceilings, and deserving the 
encomium that they make ' ' the most magnificent nat- 
ural tunnel in the world." The guides direct our 
attention to stout poles projecting from rifts in the 
roof, and we wonder how they ever got there. They 
also lift slabs along the margin of the cave and exhibit 
ancient fireplaces, with ashes and embers. These 
were described in Lee's "Notes of the Mammoth 
Cave," and also exhibited by old Matt to the writer in 
1 88 1. By whom were those fires kindled, and for what 
purpose ? 

This gallery used to be called the "Salts Room," 
or the "Snow Room," for the reason that the heated 
air from the lamps, or even a lusty shout from a guide, 
brings about our heads a myriad floating, whirling, 
sahne flakes, like a mimic snow-storm. On examina- 



56 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

tion we find the seeming snow-flakes to be tiny crystals 
of sodium sulphate, detached from the ceiling by the 
agitation of the air. Even when all the cave is still 
and deserted they silently fall, pushed from the roof 
by the growth of new crystals, and whitening the 
rugged rocks by a perennial precipitation of saline 
snow. This is one of the most curious illusions of the 
cavern. 

The resemblance of the Main Cave to a vast river bed, 
along whose channel, now so dry and dusty, once flowed 
a subterranean Nile, led the excited fancy of the early 
explorers to imagine the tremendous heaps of enormous 
rocks to be the ruins of demolished cities. Hence they 
named them "the First City," "the Second City," then 
came the Cataracts, and beyond them, as we shall pres- 
ently discover, the "Chief City," and other cities, five 
in all. But we do well to observe the indications, in 
passing along, that this really was once a stream-swept 
channel. We find where the channel parted, was 
reunited, and then parted again, thus forming quasi 
islands that now remain as huge pillars from fifty to a 
hundred feet in diameter. The spaces between them 
are usually shallow, but when the arcade is illuminated 
the jutting bosses cast deep shadows, and the effect is 
as if we stood at the intersection of immense cross- 
caverns. The Sigma Bend winds along with serpentine 
course to the large Cross Rooms, where the narrow, 
tortuous bend suddenly expands to a width of one 
hundred and seventy-five feet, which it keeps for five 
hundred and fifty feet. Midway is a transept that 
expands the total width to three hundred and fifty feet. 
(Lee's measurement, as quoted by Doctor Bird.) Thus 
the S-shaped bend opens into a T-shaped hall. Recent 



THE MAIN CAVE ROUTE. 5/ 

authorities call this magnificent room Wright's Rotunda, 
in honor of Doctor C. A. Wright, of Louisville.* Fox 
Avenue opens on the right and leads backward to a 
point where it re-enters the Sigma Bend, thus enclosing 
a large cave-island. On the left the transept branches 
around another island, and opens into what are termed 
the Chimneys, irregular crannies, through which one 
who is not averse to rugged climbing may reach the 
Black Chambers above. The black oxide of mangan- 
ese, which we saw in the Star Chamber and Proctor's 
Arcade, instead of simulating the starry sky or the 
floating clouds, here swathes the walls and roof in 
absolute funereal black, while the enormous rocks tum- 
bled about in the wildest disorder make a scene gloomy 
beyond description. 

We now approach the Cataracts, and find ourselves 
on the brink of a steep hollow crossing the cave from 
right to left, partly filled with debris, but with sides 
rugged enough to make a descent into it dangerous. 
On the farther side of this pit stands a solid wall, 
while in the roof, on our right, are ugly holes from 
which streams perpetually fall into the chasm and 
vanish amid the rocks. There is quite a cascade, even 
in a dry season, and after a heavy rainfall the tumult- 
uous torrent that descends amply justifies the term 
Cataract, and makes itself heard to a great dis- 
tance. 

By picking our way with care along a narrow path 
on the left of the Cataract chasm. Doctor Call and 
myself reached what Doctor Bird regards as, properly 

<'In Mellen's "Book of the United States" (1837), page 100, what is now 
known as Wright's Rotunda is called the Chief City, and the five great avenues 
leading out from it are minutely described, in the fifth of which was found the 
Fifth City, the same that was named the Temple by Lee, and to which Doctor 
Bird transferred the name of Chief City that it has had ever since. 



58 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

speaking, the " termination of the Grand Gallery," that 
is to say, of the Main Cave; although the term con- 
tinues to be popularly applied to a wide and lofty 
passage on another level, and of which more will be 
said presently. The spot we reached was very interest- 
ing for another reason, namely, because the immense 
weight of rocks and earth overhead had crushed the 
strata into a remarkable syncline exactly the reverse of 
the general arch of the cavern. 

Returning to the Cataract, partly descending into 
the pit, and then climbing over a wall, we find a second 
avenue, near which is the way to the Solitary Cham- 
bers and the Fairy Grotto. The grotto was once one 
of the most beautiful places in the cave, with grotesque 
stalactites and other attractions that have since been 
marred by Vandals. This fact and also the difficulty 
of access prevent this locality from now being exhib- 
ited to visitors. 

Accordingly we will resume our journey by leaving 
Cataract Hall through an arch that admits us to a 
grand avenue commonly regarded as a continuation 
of the Main Cave, although really not identical with 
it. The path runs over limestone slabs that tilt 
and clatter under our feet, and between walls of 
monotonous gray, until, just as we begin to grow 
weary of the din and the sameness, the walls sud- 
denly recede and we find ourselves at the portal of 
the largest subterranean temple in the world. This 
immense dome was called the Temple by Mr. Lee; 
but Doctor Bird first gave the name of the Chief 
City, which had previously been given to what is now 
known as Wright's Rotunda. 

The magnificence of the Chief City is not instantly 



THE MAIN CAVE ROUTE. 59 

appreciated, the first sensation being simply that of 
surprise at the recession of the walls and the boundless 
darkness before us. But when we climb the ruins of 
the mountain that rises from the floor, and the guide 
burns magnesium or red fire, we stand awe-stricken 
beneath the stupendous dome and vainly search with 
our eyes for the dim and distant boundaries of this 
majestic temple of silence and of night. The exact 
truth is here sufficiently impressive, and exaggeration 
seems an impertinence. The measurement made by 
the writer and Mr. Hains, in 1893, gave as the extreme 
length of the room four hundred and fifty feet, and as 
its average width one hundred and seventy-five feet. A 
simple arithmetical calculation will show the areal 
dimensions to be about one acre and three quarters. 
E. F. Lee, C. E., made it two acres. Doctor Call 
remeasured the room, in 1896, with a steel tape, exer- 
cising great care, and obtained the following results: 
Greatest length, five hundred and forty-one feet; maxi- 
mum diameter, two hundred and eighty-seven feet; 
average diameter, one hundred and ninety feet. This 
would give the areal dimensions as about two and one- 
third acres. A good deal depends on where one begins 
to measure, for it is not quite certain where the spring 
of the arch actually arises. The line also has to be run 
over the irregular rocks, for which a varying allowance 
may be made. Estimates as to the height of the dome 
likewise vary from ninety to one hundred and twenty- 
five feet. But why concern ourselves with cold figures 
in a place that so fires the imagination .'' The reader 
who has never been under this overshadowing canopy 
can not realize the vastness of that solid, seamless arch 
of limestone that has stood the wear and shock of 



60 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

thousands of years, and that may maintain its symmet- 
rical span until the Day of Doom demolishes it, along 
with 

' ' The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
The solemn temples, and the great globe itself." 

The impressiveness of the Chief City is enhanced by 
utter solitude, as the writer can testify, having been, on 
a certain occasion, accidentally forsaken by comrades 
and guides, and left alone on the subterranean mountain 
at the solemn midnight hour. Sitting solitary, with no 
better light than that given by a single lamp, and even 
extinguishing that faint luminary in order to enjoy the 
luxury of absolute silence and Cimmerian darkness, it 
was strange what a rush of imaginary sounds filled the 
place, and how the fancy peopled the dome with 
uncouth and mysterious shapes. What a relief it was 
to break the spell by the simple method of striking a 
match, and what company was found in the cheerful 
flame of my freshly trimmed lamp! How welcome, at 
last, the approach of Doctor Call and his party! 

The dust of untold ages lies on the huge rocks, amid 
which are found half-burnt bits of cane, which the 
guides assure us that the red men used to fill with 
bear's fat and burn in lieu of torches. Fragments of 
woven moccasins, and other remains, prove aboriginal 
visitation. Doctor Bird found these things, in 1837, 
filling the room "in astonishing, unaccountable quan- 
tities." The statement made by the early managers is 
that great bonfires of these combustibles were kindled 
to illuminate the mountain and the dome. But it is an 
open question as to the motives that led the dusky 
aborigines to frequent this mysterious chamber. Did 



THE MAIN CAVE ROUTE. 6 1 

they here hold prehistoric councils? Did they find 
amid this rocky fortress a safe refuge from pursuing 
foes ? Or were these earliest visitors, like the latest, led 
hither by simple curiosity? The first white explorers 
are said to have found aboriginal implements, pottery, 
blankets of woven bark, and other relics not unlike 
those found amid the cliff dwellings of Arizona. But 
who brought them to this subterranean hall, and 
whence came they, and when, and what was their fate, 
are problems for the archaeologist. Pondering these 
mysteries we reluctantly leave the Chief City, with its 
assemblage of nooks and rocks, alcoves and monu- 
mental ruins, all aglow in the light of chemical fires, 
and overarched by that marvelous dome, which, as 
every observant visitor has remarked, seems to follow 
us in retiring, as the sky bends its canopy of blue over 
the moving traveler. 

It is possibly a mile from the Chief City to the 
terminus of the cave in this direction. What meets 
the eye is a repetition of what we have already seen, 
only the rocks are if possible more teetering, and the 
task more wearisome of clambering over the piles of 
loose and irregular slabs of limestone. At intervals we 
are rewarded by spacious domes only less grand than 
that we have just been admiring. St. Catherine City 
is made by the intersection of two avenues. That on 
our right is the Symmes' Pit Branch, and ends in a 
funnel-shaped pit, called a "well," but dry now. The 
left-hand branch leads to the Blue Spring, and has a 
good path made by the removal of the rocky frag- 
ments. This painstaking work has been ascribed to the 
Indians, but it was probably done by the old saltpeter 
miners in their search for " peter-dirt. " Neither of 



62 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

these branches will repay the ordinary visitor for 
exploration. 

Resuming our way from St. Catherine City, we 
presently come to two very beautiful domes, whose 
floors are covered with fine sand, and whose smooth 
walls arise symmetrically to an oval ceiling. As their 
former names were meaningless and inappropriate, we 
obtained permission to rename them. The first we 
christen Waldach's Dome, in honor of the late Charles 
Waldach, of Cincinnati, the pioneer in the work of 
subterranean photography, and who, as he told the 
writer, consumed five hundred dollars' worth of mag- 
nesium in taking some fifty views by the old-fashioned 
"wet process." The other dome we named Hains' 
Dome, in honor of our friend, Mr. Ben Hains, of New 
Albany, Indiana, who carried to perfection the task 
Mr. Waldach began under certain disadvantages, and 
whose explorations have also added materially to our 
knowledge of the mazes of Mammoth Cave. 

Beyond these lovely domes we tread an ascending 
path over more tilting slabs, bending our heads low 
to avoid concussion against the roof. We are in the 
Garret, where salts abound like those we found in the 
Snow Room. Crystals hang from the roof and also 
spring from the earth in graceful forms. It is with 
peculiar sensations that we pass a pile of sandstone 
rocks and approach a wall of dry, thin flakes of lime- 
stone from floor to ceiling. By an effort we thrust our 
way a few feet further and touch the solid, impenetrable 
wall, beyond which no man has ever yet gone. Our 
long journey in this direction is done. For this is the 
Ultima Thule. 



THE RIVER ROUTE. 



BY HORACE CARTER HOVEY. 



THE River Route has no equal of its kind in the 
known subterranean world. Its features are so 
unlike those of the Main Cave and the region 
of pits and domes as to make it seem an altogether 
different cavern — which indeed it really is. For the 
Mammoth Cave, instead of being one vast excavation, 
is a congeries of caverns, whose walls and floors were 
thinned by the action of water till they were broken 
through into one immense and intricate labyrinth. 

Just as the visitor to Niagara wants to see the 
Canadian as well as the American Falls, to gaze on the 
impetuous rapids above as well as the tremendous 
whirlpool below the cataract, and to crown it all by a 
ride on the Maid of the Mist amid the seething caldron 
and sheets of spray, so the visitor to Niagara's rival, 
the wonderful Mammoth Cave, should take time to 
explore every route that is open for the public, and he 
will be amply repaid by an experience that will enrich 
a Hfetime. 

The term '* Long Route," that has been applied to 
what we now call the River Route, may be appropriate 
by reason of its being a longer trip than the other reg- 
ulation routes. But it is misleading, and possibly deters 
persons from undertaking it who could do so very com- 
fortably and with comparatively little fatigue. There 
are frequent stops at points of special interest, an ample 
recess for a mid-day lunch, and an interval of repose 
during the boat-ride on Echo River. Professor H. A. 



64 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

Newton, of Yale University, Doctor A. E. Foote, of 
Philadelphia, together with the senior author of this 
Manual, made an approximate measurement of the dis- 
tance from the mouth of the cave to the end of the 
route at Croghan's Hall, and agreed in making it four 
miles and a half, not including the length of Echo 
River, which we had at the time no means of deter- 
mining. In other words, the trip in and out would 
require about nine miles of walking, and the time 
usually allowed for it, including the boat-ride and the 
various stops, is eight or nine hours. The fact should 
also be remembered that the spirits are sustained by 
the exhilarating cave atmosphere, which is as pure as 
can be found on any ordinary mountain top, as well as 
by the great variety and novelty of the perpetually 
changing subterranean scenery. 

The River Route might be taken by itself apart from 
the other trips below ground; but it is more commonly 
reserved for the second day's excursion, and as a 
delightful sequel to the shorter routes that have already 
been described. We will imagine, therefore, that the 
visitor has explored the Main Cave and Gothic Avenue 
and the region of pits and domes, and has had a good 
night's rest at the hotel, before accompanying us on 
this new quest of adventure. 

Down the valley again we go, led by the guides into 
the mouth of the cavern, under the thick horizontal 
plates of limestone, from whose green, mossy ledge the 
wild pattering rill falls forever with music on the rocks 
below. What becomes of it.? No pool nor stream is 
visible, but the cascade instantly disappears. An ice- 
house was formerly here, in the days of Doctor Crog- 
han, and the excavation made for that purpose reveals 



THE RIVER ROUTE. 65 

the walls of a chasm that extends far below the accu- 
mulation of rocky fragments and indurated clay along 
which our pathway runs. We are really walking near 
the roof of a huge hall, like Dixon's Cave, but that is 
now filled by debris. The true cavern floor is hidden 
from sight by the broken rocks through whose confused 
spaces the cascade finds its mysterious way to the gen- 
eral drainage level and gathering-bed of subterranean 
waters, to which the deepest pits likewise cut their 
way, and which we are now about to approach by a 
more convenient route. 

There are three ways of reaching the region of the 
lakes and rivers. Each has its advantages and its dis- 
comforts. Tourists who go in one way usually come 
out another, for the sake of variety. The first way, 
and the shortest, is through the opening known as the 
Corkscrew, near what are termed the Kentucky Cliffs, 
on our left and beyond the Rotunda. The other two 
ways are reached by going through Dante's Gateway, 
near the Giant's Coffin, and entering the Wooden Bowl 
Room. A passage to the left, from this room, is the 
beginning of Ganter Avenue, which leads beyond the 
rivers. By turning to the right, instead, and crossing 
the Bottomless Pit, we come to the Scotchman's Trap 
and the Fat Man's Misery, by going through which 
we enter River Hall. Each of these three ways will 
receive a more full description, in the order in which 
they have just been named : the Corkscrew, Ganter 
Avenue, and the Fat Man's Misery. 

The Corkscrew is an intricate web of fissures, known 
as long ago as 1837, but not as a passage to River Hall, 
which had not yet been discovered. In one of the 
oldest published descriptions of the Mammoth Cave it 



66 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

is stated that "among the Kentucky CHffs, just under 
the ceihng, is a gap in the wall into which you can 
scramble and make your way down a chaotic gulf, 
creeping like a rat, under and among loose rocks, to 
the depth of eighty or ninety feet — provided you do 
not break your neck before you get half-way." That 
is a very graphic description of the Corkscrew as it is 
to-day, allowing for the improvements since made by 
removing obstructions and building stairways here and 
there, so that the passage is much more safe and prac- 
ticable than formerly. William Garvin, the guide, was 
the first man to make his way completely through, in 
1 87 1, to Bandit's Hall, and thence to the River Hall. 
Those availing themselves of the Corkscrew have the 
satisfaction of reducing materially the length of the 
River Route, as compared with other approaches. It 
is in itself interesting, as already explained, as giving 
an example of an enormous pit that has somehow been 
filled up with gigantic blocks of limestone. 

Ganter Avenue is the name now given to a com- 
bination of smaller avenues, effected by sixteen months 
of hard labor under the direction of Manager H. C. 
Ganter. It was platted, in March, 1891, by H. C. 
Hovey and Ben Hains. Its total length, as measured 
by them, is eighty-five hundred feet from the Wooden 
Bowl Room to Serpent Hall ; while the direct distance 
between those points is only about thirty-two hundred 
feet. Some of the guides first wormed their way 
through in September, 1879, and as they proved it to 
be possible for those caught beyond the rivers in a time 
of flood thus to escape to the surface, I named the new 
discovery "Welcome Avenue." But by authority of 
the owners I changed the name to its present form, in 



THE RIVER ROUTE. 6/ 

1 89 1, as a recognition of the tireless energy and skillful 
engineering of Manager Ganter, who thus overcame 
obstacles that seemed almost insurmountable. The 
avenue as it now exists really cuts through three of 
the five tiers of Mammoth Cave. The passage, for a 
long distance, though forty feet high, was extremely 
crooked and also very narrow at the bottom. The 
latter difficulty was removed by laying a solid stone 
floor midway between the bottom and the top, thus 
making a wider path, though even now it is narrow 
enough to try the patience. Many roughnesses were 
removed from the walls by judicious pounding and 
blasting ; though enough knobs remain to serve as 
specimens of those that were formerly so numerous 
and exasperating. A remarkable stone stairway of one 
hundred steps, called "Rider Haggard's Flight," con- 
nects the three levels of the cavern, as mentioned 
above. There are branches leading from Ganter Ave- 
nue to various domes and pits and lovely crystal cham- 
bers, all inaccessible, however, to the general visitor. 
The main advantage of this avenue is that it enables 
the guides to take parties safely through to the end of 
the cave, at any time of the year, and regardless of 
the stage of water in the lakes and rivers. Otherwise 
we would hardly advise visitors to attempt this passage, 
unless they are resolute pedestrians and are willing to 
endure some degree of fatigue in search of adventure. 
The third way of reaching River Hall, and the one 
usually followed either going in or coming out, is by 
crossing the Bottomless Pit and going through Fat 
Man's Misery. We leave behind us Pensico Avenue 
with its noble archways, Resonator Hall, and other 
attractions generally included in another route. We 



68 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

may, if we have time and inclination, turn aside for a 
few steps and follow the narrow and winding passage 
to the left that leads back to a ledge near the middle of 
the Bottomless Pit, whence we also catch a glimpse of 
openings into Scylla and Charybdis. This is one of the 
most awe-inspiring spots in the entire cave. 

But our direct path leads us through the tortuous 
channel to which the too appropriate cognomen of the 
Fat Man's Misery has long been given, in spite of every 
protest from those whose preference would be for some 
more poetical appellation. The walls of this serpentine 
channel are about eighteen inches apart, while the 
average space between the sandy floor and the stub- 
born rock overhead is only five feet. The channel 
changes its direction eight times in the two hundred 
and thirty-six feet of its length; and in the latter part 
of its course the floor comes up and the roof comes 
down to bother tall men as well as fat ones. Yet, after 
all, the difficulties of the passage are usually exagger- 
ated, and it is doubtful if many visitors have ever proved 
too fat or too tall to get safely through by the kindly 
aid of the guides. Allowance must be made for the 
funny stories by which the trip is enlivened. Do not 
fail, amid your jokes and laughter, to notice how beau- 
tifully the rocky sides of the Fat Man's Misery are 
marked with waves and ripples, as if running water had 
suddenly been caught and petrified. At last we will- 
ingly emerge from the too close embrace of the rocky 
walls into a room fitly called "Great Relief," where we 
may straighten our spines and enjoy the luxury of a full 
breath. 

Bacon Chamber, near by, offers a striking example 
of natural mimicry. Masses of limestone hang down 




COPYRIGHTED : <. '993 ; 2. 1889. BY BEN MAINS 



ON THE RIVER ROUTE. 
Fat Man's Misery. In Cleaveland's Cabinet. 















COPYRIGHTED : 



ON THE RIVER ROUTE. 



The Bacon Chamber. 
End of River Route. 



Victoria's Crown. 
In White Cave. 



THE RIVER ROUTE. 69 

like rows of hams and shoulders and sides of bacon in 
a packing-house. Their formation is explained on the 
theory of unequal solution. The Odd Fellow's Links, 
the Atlantic Cable, and other concretions found along 
the crevices in the ceiling of the main avenue are all 
stalactitic. These grotesque shapes lead us to ask if 
the reader has ever noticed the true meaning of that 
word "grotesque," like what is found in grottoes; just 
as "picturesque " means something like what is to be 
seen in pictures. 

We are now fairly within River Hall, which really 
extends for miles, if understood to include all the ram- 
ifications of the passage-ways of the subterranean 
waters. Indeed, these come no one knows whence, 
flow no one knows whither, and emerge no one knows 
where. Conjectures have been made, some of them 
plausible, but positive knowledge of the mysterious 
subject is yet to be gained. It is known, in a general 
way, that these are the gathering-beds of thousands of 
sink-holes opening down from the surface; and that 
they come to the open air again in localities like the 
Upper and Lower Big Springs. But precisely what 
sink-holes and what springs are thus concerned, who 
really knows ? The subterranean currents are capricious 
and contrary, now flowing one way and then another, 
obedient to local changes in hydrostatic level. No one 
who has ever seen them in their glory and their terrible 
flood-force can accept the theory that they find an 
adequate outlet in the springs just named. Those deep, 
bubbling pools, lying along the bank of Green River, 
under cliffs bristling with cedar and pine, are always 
submerged when that river is flooded. At such times, 
likewise, the cave rivers are flooded, forming a vast, 



70 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

continuous body fully two miles long, varying from 
thirty to sixty feet in depth, and sometimes even more 
than that. Torrents empty into them through the 
numberless sink-holes. Every cascade in the cavern 
adds its quota to the result. The flood may suddenly 
rise, but it more slowly retires, the subsidence of the 
waters being with a powerful suction causing eddies 
and whirlpools. There must be somewhere a suitable 
exit for this vast and tumultuous body of water. Such 
an outlet is visible five miles below Mammoth Cave, 
only it is on the wrong side of Green River, where a 
torrent bursts from the rocks with force enough to turn 
the wheels of a mill. The problem will probably be 
solved by a more careful exploration of the right side 
of Green River. We may say, in passing, that the 
theory held by Edmund F. Lee, C. E. , that the accu- 
mulated waters of Mammoth Cave occupy a bed lower 
than Green River, and ultimately empty into the Ohio 
River, or even into the Atlantic Ocean, is proved to be 
entirely erroneous by means of barometric observations 
that have been made. 

Our pathway skirts the edge of a cliff sixty feet high, 
under which reposes an isolated pool to whose sullen 
water the name of the Dead Sea is given. An iron 
railing guards the way for about a hundred feet, when 
we descend a flight of steps to a lower terrace. If we 
venture down to the margin and taste the water of the 
pool we shall find it sweet, instead of bitter like that of 
its Oriental namesake. Turning a few steps to the 
right we find a cascade which has been regarded as a 
reappearance of the waterfall at the mouth of the cave, 
although of this there is hardly sufficient proof. The 
cascade precipitates itself into a funnel-shaped hollow 



THE RIVER ROUTE. /I 

of silt, and vanishes under a massive mud-covered 
limestone ledge. 

In this vicinity the writer found, in 1881, a natural 
mushroom bed, that suggested the idea of a mushroom 
farm here, similar to those in France, whence thou- 
sands of bushels are annually marketed. My suggestion 
met with favor, and extensive beds were laid out in 
Audubon Avenue, on which many thousands of dollars 
were spent ; but with meagre results for lack of suitable 
irrigation. There is no reason why the plan should 
not work well by proper methods. 

The topic of eyeless fish and other aquatic inhabi- 
tants of the cave streams would naturally be treated 
here ; but the reader is referred to the special chapter 
on cavern fauna for the desired information. 

"While speculating as to cascades, mushrooms, and 
blind fish we were startled on the occasion of our first 
visit by hilarious sounds that heralded the approach of 
another party. There never was a prettier sight than 
this merry company when they finally emerged from 
the darkness, sixty in all, with flashing lamps and 
spangled costumes. They wound past us along the 
sombre terrace, astonishing the gnomes by their jolly 
shouts and jovial songs. On they went, single file, 
behind a wall of stone, to come into view again on a 
natural bridge over the River Styx. The details of the 
wild scene were brought to light as they swung their 
lamps in order to catch sight of the mysterious banks 
on which we stood below them. The estimated length 
of the River Styx, whose black waters wind their way 
between the steep walls and underneath the bridge, is 
about four hundred feet, and its breadth is not far from 
forty feet. Formerly it had to be crossed by boats, but 



72 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

now it is done by the natural bridge just mentioned. 
The spot was dangerous before a guard-rail was erected. 
Among the thrilling stories told of cave adventures is 
that told by William, the guide, of Professor Silliman's 
slipping from the bridge. The savant would have 
fallen into the Styx had not the brave guide sprung to 
the rescue. 

On descending from the bridge we enter a lofty and 
spacious hall, where we find the placid waters of Lake 
Lethe, a body about as large as the Styx, and which 
was also formerly crossed by a boat. It is now partly 
filled with debris, allowing the construction of a narrow 
path along its margin to the pontoon that bridges its 
neck. 

From this we step upon a beach of the finest yellow 
sand. This is the Great Walk to the Echo River, a 
distance of some four hundred yards. The ceiling here 
is not far from ninety feet high, and is most beautifully 
mottled with black and white limestones, like snow- 
clouds in a wintry sky. By igniting magnesium we get 
the wonderful effect in its splendor. Thus we also 
descry the marvelous masque of Shakespeare overhead. 
The actual likeness to the renowned Bard of Avon is 
striking. The Great Walk is only five feet above low 
water mark, and is submerged during the rainy season. 
Usually it is in good order during the months when 
tourists are most apt to visit the cave. As we walk 
along it let us keep a sharp watch for the Cambarits 
pellucidus, the blind and white crawfish for which 
the cave is noted. The earliest mention of it is the 
following : 

"The river is a stream of water twenty feet wide 
and they said as many deep. It was discovered only 



ffi 





P4 



THE RIVER ROUTE. 73 

about a year ago. Its current is very sluggish, as has 
been proved by launching a piece of wood bearing a 
lighted candle on its bosom. We were informed that 
a species of white fish were found here without eyes, 
and the keeper of the hotel assured us that he himself 
had seen them, but that their other senses were so 
acute the slightest touch of water overhead was suf- 
ficient to alarm them and make them dart off like 
lightning." Davidson describes the canoe in which 
visitors would row a short distance till stopped by a 
rocky barrier. Two of his acquaintances resolved to 
pass this barrier. "Accordingly, lifting the skiff over 
the rock, they launched it on the other side, and rowed, 
as they thought, for two miles. They beheld a great 
many new scenes and chambers never explored before. 
They also saw some of the white fish. As for us, on 
our visit, we were not favored with a sight of these 
natural curiosities." (Extract from a Report read 
before the Society of Adelphi of Transylvania Univer- 
sity, January i6, 1840, by Reverend R. Davidson.) 
This was two years previous to Dekay's description, 
in 1842, and which is credited by Agassiz with being 
the first scientific mention of these interesting fish. 

The first persons who ever crossed these waters 
were Stephen Bishop, the guide, accompanied by Pro- 
fessor Brice Patton, a teacher in the Louisville Asylum 
for the Blind, and Mr. John Craig, of Philadelphia. 
Those who now cross so gaily and with such manifest 
delight can hardly realize the degree of courage 
demanded for that first voyage of discovery across 
these subterranean waters. Mention of the Asylum 
for the Blind reminds us that at various times a 
number of blind people have visited Mammoth Cave. 



74 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

Matt piloted a party of them through in 1880; and it 
was remarkable to hear them speak without any sense 
of incongruity of what they had seen, and about which 
they were as enthusiastic as any others. 

A fleet of flat-boats awaits us on Echo River. These 
boats are built of planks and timbers brought in by 
way of the Crevice Pit and Mammoth Dome ; though 
formerly every piece had to come in by the Fat Man's 
Misery. When not in use the fleet is moored by chains, 
though grapevines were used at the time of our first 
visit. Ropes are not strong enough to hold the boats 
in time of flood. A stray boat lies stranded below 
Gorin's Dome. How did it get there } 

Each boat has seats on the gunwales for twenty 
passengers, who set their lamps down in a row in the 
middle of the craft. The guide stands in the bow and 
propels the boat by a long paddle, or by grasping rocks 
projecting from the ceiling. Usually but a slight cur- 
rent is to be noticed. Hence the singular inaccuracy 
of an imaginative picture by a French artist that has 
been extensively copied, representing the river as bois- 
terous, and frantic oarsmen striving with might and 
main to keep the boat from shipwreck on the rocks. 
And as the only gale here is that which blows out from 
the mouth of the cave, there is equal absurdity in a 
striking picture that shows sail-boats on this calm and 
unruffled tide. 

There are three arches, through either of which we 
may launch on Echo River. The first arch is only 
about three feet above low water, and if the river has 
risen a little, it is necessary to go on to the second, 
or even the third arch. In doing this we cross the 
Sandy Desert and flounder through a muddy place 



THE RIVER ROUTE. 75 

named Purgatory. As has already been stated, there 
is a current of varying strength when the river rises 
above low water mark. The last time we were there 
we undertook the voyage at some peril, and the guide 
made no use of his paddle, relying wholly on the cur- 
rent and his pointed staff to take us through. The next 
day the river was wholly impassable. But great care 
is taken by the guides, and we have never yet heard of 
any mishaps on the rivers. 

The voyage is replete with pleasure and with none 
but the most agreeable adventures. The archway 
overhead varies from five to thirty feet, while the 
plummet shows about an equal variation in the depth 
of the water over whose bosom we float. According to 
the barometer the surface is about twenty feet above 
the level of Green River, though observations differ, 
some making it more and others less than we have 
stated. The width of Echo River varies from twenty 
to two hundred feet, and its length is probably about 
half a mile. The stream can not properly be said to 
have any shore, as, except at the landing places, the 
rocks come abruptly down to the water. Along the 
margin are a myriad cavities, from a few inches to 
many feet in diameter, that have been washed out by 
the stream. These cavelets gave a wag who was in our 
party the first time we crossed the stream his coveted 
opportunity for a joke. ' ' Oh, see these little bits of 
caves — three for five cents," were his silly words. The 
solemn echoes caught them up and bore them, as if in 
derision, hither and thither and far away, till he was 
ashamed of himself. When the peals of laughter that 
followed had also died away, a quiet lady in black velvet 
cave costume, with tiny sleigh-bells along the edge to 



yd MAMMOTH CAVE. 

help people to find her in case she got lost, sang the 
"Sweet Bye and Bye," and the echoes were singularly 
sweet and pleasing. Then some one fired off a revolver, 
and the report rebounded tremendously from rock to 
rock. A native Kentuckian favored us with the famous 
"Rebel Yell," which was re-echoed as if a regiment 
was rallied from the recesses of the cavern. Flute 
music awoke delicious reverberations, and the cornet 
brought out corresponding effects. The tones of a full 
chord struck in quick succession brought back a sweep- 
ing arpeggio. 

It should be explained that this symmetrical pas- 
sage-way does not give back a distinct echo, as the 
term is commonly used ; but gives a melodious pro- 
longation of sound for from ten to thirty minutes after 
the original impulse. The tunnel has a certain key- 
note of its own, which, when firmly struck, excites 
harmonics with tones of incredible depth and sweet- 
ness, the lowest of them reminding one of the profound 
^undertone heard in the tremendous music of Niagara. 

The most extraordinary effects are produced when 
Echo River is allowed to speak for itself, and can only 
be had when the party is willing to maintain utter 
silence. The method is simply by the guide's agitating 
the water by rocking the boat and striking the water 
vigorously with his paddle. The first sound to break 
the intense stillness is like the tinkling of myriads of 
tiny silver bells. Then larger and heavier bells take 
up the harmony as the waves seek out the cavities in 
the rocky wall. Then it is as if all chimes of all 
cathedrals had conspired to raise a tempest of sweet 
sounds. These die away to a whisper, followed by 
mutterings and a noise as if of an angry multitude, 



THE RIVER ROUTE. "JJ 

mingled with unearthly shrieks. Alarmed, we are ready 
to go to the rescue ; but the guide motions to us to 
keep quiet and await what is to follow. We sit in 
expectation. Lo, as if from some deep recess that 
had hitherto been forgotten, comes a tone tender and 
profound ; after which, like gentle memories, are 
reawakened all the mellow sounds, the silver bells, the 
alarm bells, the chiming cathedral bells, till River Hall 
rings again with the wondrous, matchless harmony. 

As we land at Rocky Inlet the melody of a cascade 
greets us, whose falling water breaks into Hquid pearls 
on the ledges. This is appropriately called Cascade 
Hall. An opening on our right leads to Roaring River. 
This peculiar stream is difficult of access, being a suc- 
cession of shallow ripples and deep basins, navigable 
only by a canoe that can be carried over the portages. 
It has a remarkable echo, and offers points of interest to 
the scientist, but is never visited by ordinary tourists. 

Silliman's Avenue contains numerous places worthy 
of note. We first come to singular shelf-like projec- 
tions called Wellington's Galleries. Then, at the DripH 
ping Spring, we find the only stalactites seen since 
entering River Hall. The paucity of these natural 
ornamentations is explained elsewhere in this Manual. 
The guides, with slight regard for reverence, have 
named the next localities, in succession, the Infernal 
Regions, Pluto's Dome, and Old Scratch Hall. We 
leave them to justify their choice of names as best they 
may, and the tourist who disputes them will find that 
they are equal to the occasion. For instance, the ceil- 
ing in Old Scratch Hall is marked all over in a most 
extraordinary manner, which the guides assure us was 
done as a deed of darkness by the Evil One, although it 



78 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

looks very much as if they had done it themselves with 
the tips of their spiked staffs. But the trails of the 
serpents in Serpent Hall are plainly freaks of nature, 
and are very singular. There are many of these 
winding grooves in the ceiling. 

Here is the high water mark of Echo River in time 
of flood. And here, also, is the inner termination of 
Ganter Avenue, which runs from this place to the 
Wooden Bowl Room, near the Giant's Coffin, and 
affords an exit for any unlucky tourist who may be 
caught beyond the rivers during a sudden rise of their 
waters — a thing, by the way, that seldom happens. 
The Valley Way Side-cut is mainly interesting for its 
profusion of gypsum crystals that grow in the niches 
along the walls, and are dug from the ground like 
potatoes. 

After descending the Hill of Fatigue we come to the 
fac-simile of an enormous ocean steamer with her rud- 
der hard aport ; and as the unique resemblance was 
first noticed at the time of the launching of the pon- 
derous Great Eastern, this was fitly christened the 
Great Western. Beyond it is the Valley of Flowers ; 
and then Silliman's Avenue, which we have been trav- 
ersing, ends in Ole Bull's Concert Hall, where the 
renowned Norwegian violinist once gave a musical 
entertainment. Just before reaching this hall, how- 
ever, we notice on our left the entrance to Rhoda's 
Arcade, not included in the regular route. It leads by 
a winding and picturesque path, about five hundred 
yards in length, easily followed, to one of the most 
symmetrical domes in Mammoth Cave. The arcade is 
about ten feet high, and in many places the walls are 
incrusted with fine crystals of gypsum. Lucy's Dome, 



THE RIVER ROUTE. 79 

thus reached, is about sixty feet in diameter, and per- 
haps a hundred feet high, although enthusiastic admirers 
have credited it with thrice that altitude. The sides 
are composed of immense curtains reaching from the 
floor to the dim vault above. A twin-dome near by is 
connected with it by a tall archway. During our visit 
in 1 896 we had the guides burn red fire in this window, 
thus illuminating both domes, and the effect was grand 
beyond description. 

El Ghor is a wild, rugged pass, on a lower level 
than Silliman's Avenue. It meanders through the lime- 
stone like the dry bed of an ancient river. Overhead 
are the Hanging Rocks that never fall, though forever 
threatening to do so. In Fly Chamber, on the walls 
and rocks, are myriads of tiny crystals of black gypsum, 
each about the size of a house-fly. The Sheep-shelter 
is a rock jutting from the left wall for ten feet, and 
expanding for twenty feet in length. Victoria's Crown, 
sixteen feet in diameter, is on our right. Boone Avenue 
leads off to the left. Corinna's Dome is directly over 
El Ghor. The Black Hole of Calcutta is an ugly pit 
twenty feet deep. Stella's Dome, which resembles 
Lucy's Dome, is reached by an avenue to the left. 
The guides also point out the Mule-stall, the Anvil, the 
Chimes, and other grotesque objects. Hebe's Spring, 
four feet wide and a foot or more deep, is said to be 
supplied with pure water at the top and sulphur water 
below, indicating two sources of supply. El Ghor goes 
on for half a mile further and communicates with the 
Mystic River. The pathway, however, is now blocked 
at Hebe's Spring by a stone stairway, up which we 
climb to Mary's Vineyard. A stalactite winds from 
ceiling to floor, and is called the Grapevine. Around 



80 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

it are countless nodules of calcium carbonate coated 
with black oxide of iron, which simulate clusters on 
clusters of luscious grapes, gleaming with varied tints 
through the dripping dew. No covetous hand is per- 
mitted to pluck this subterranean vintage. By a detour 
through Elindo Avenue one may reach a natural chapel 
named by a priest the Holy Sepulchre. The walls are 
dark and bare, but in the vicinity are some fine stalac- 
tites. 

Washington Hall is a locality toward which we have 
for some time cast our longing eyes, not on account of 
its beauty, but because it is the usual dining-place for 
parties taking the River Route. It is somewhat circu- 
lar in shape and one hundred feet in longest diameter. 
Its walls are smoke-stained, and the floor is strewn 
with the relics of hundreds of dining-parties, while 
along its margin is a rampart of broken bottles left 
there by prohibitionists, and others, once filled with 
milk, cold coffee, or other beverages. 

With appetites whetted by vigorous exercise and 
the bracing cave-air we fall to in primitive style, and 
partake of the repast provided for us, forgetful of the 
fact that we are far below the brave sunshine and the 
verdant forests, and only mindful that we are hungry 
mortals. While we dine the guides trim our lamps and 
replenish them from cans of oil that are kept near by 
for the purpose. 

Snowball Room comes next beyond Washington 
Hall. Its ceiling is thickly dotted with hemispherical 
masses of snowy gypsum, each being from two to ten 
inches in diameter. The effect is as if a crowd of merry 
school-boys had flung a thousand snowballs against the 
-wall, which stuck there as mementos of their sport. 




92 BY H C GANTER. 



MAMMOTH DOME. 
Ruins of Karnak. 



THE RIVER ROUTE. 8 1 

A charming side-trip occasionally taken is down 
Marion Avenue, for a mile or more, over a clean, sandy 
floor, and under a cloudy ceiling. It has two branches : 
one to the left, leading to Zoe's Grotto, and the other 
to the right, through Paradise, with its fair and crystal- 
line flowers, to Portia's Parterre. Digby's Dome has 
no special attractions, but is geologically interesting 
because it cuts through to the upper sandstone. 

Cleaveland's Cabinet, which we next enter, is a long 
and singularly magnificent avenue, named for the late 
Professor Cleaveland, of Bowdoin College, the famous 
mineralogist. This treasure-house of alabaster brilliants 
was discovered by Stephen Bishop, accompanied by 
Messrs. Patten and Craig. It was first described by 
Professor John Locke, M, D. , of Cincinnati, in a com- 
munication to the American Journal of Science and Art, 
in 1 84 1, from data furnished him by Mrs. Anderson, a 
daughter of Mr. Nicholas Longworth. Doctor Locke 
was delighted with the gypsum rosettes exhibited for 
his inspection, some of which, he says, were a foot in 
diameter, whose acanthus-like leaves roll elegantly out- 
ward from a central disk ; and he gave them the name 
of " oulopholites, " or curled-leaf-stones. 

We wander bewildered under symmetrical arches of 
fifty feet span, where the fancy is charmed by the 
natural mimicry of every flower that grows in garden, 
forest, or prairie, from the nodding pansy to the flaunt- 
ing helianthus. Various names are given to the differ- 
ent portions of the general avenue, such as Flora's 
Garden, Mary's Bower, Floral Cross, Last Rose of 
Summer, Vale of Diamonds, Marble Hall, Diamond 
Grotto, Gem Hall, and Charlotte's Grotto. From any 
one of these take a single cave flower and examine its 



82 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

queenly petals, and it will give a good idea of all the 
rest. Each rosette is made up of countless fibrous 
crystals ; each tiny crystal is in itself a study ; each 
fascicle of curved prisms is wonderful, and the whole 
glorious blossom is a miracle of beauty. Now multiply 
this mimic blossom from one to a myriad as you move 
down the dazzling vista as if in a dream of Elysium, not 
for a few yards but for two magnificent miles, including 
all the crystalline region of which Cleaveland's Cabinet 
is only a portion. Indeed, these necessary names come 
to seem intrusive and trivial. 

All is virgin white, except here and there a patch of 
gray limestone, or a spot bronzed by metallic stain, 
or as we purposely vary the lovely monotony by burn- 
ing chemical lights. We admire the effective grouping 
done by nature's skillful fingers. Here is a great cross 
made by a mass of stone rosettes ; while floral coro- 
nets, clusters, wreaths, and garlands embellish nearly 
every foot of the ceiling and walls. The overgrown 
ornaments actually crowd each other till they fall on 
the floor and make the pathway sparkle with crushed 
and trodden jewels. It has been impossible to guard 
all these exquisite formations from covetous fingers, 
and too many have been smoked by lamps in careless 
hands. Yet, happily, the subtle forces of nature are 
at work to mend what man has marred, and to replace 
by fresh creations what has gone to the mineralogist's 
cabinet or the amateur's etagere. 

In secluded chambers, seldom exhibited to the 
ordinary troops that throng these avenues, may still be 
seen the trailing vines, branching antlers, stalks of 
celery, and pendulous fringes like the night-blooming 
cereus, that were so vividly described by Bayard 



THE RIVER ROUTE. 8$ 

Taylor and other early visitors. These are especially 
conspicuous in Charlotte's Grotto (named for the wife 
of Stephen, the guide), and which is near the terminus 
of Cleaveland's Cabinet. Here are snowy plumes float- 
ing from rifts and crevices. And here and everywhere 
in this matchless fairyland are visible clumps of lilies, 
daisies, blanched tulips, drooping fuchsias, spikes of 
tuberoses, glorious chrysanthemums, wax-leaved mag- 
nolias — but why exhaust the botanical catalogue.? 
The excited fancy readily finds every gem of the green- 
house and parterre in this crystalline conservatory. 

Suddenly, by a startling change, our path climbs up 
from these lovely regions, ascending a miniature edi- 
tion of the Rocky Mountains. From the summit of 
this vast pile of rocks the visitor beholds a lofty hall, 
which it gives the senior author of this Manual pleasure 
to name Call's Rotunda, in recognition of the enthusi- 
astic and intelligent researches made by the junior 
author, R. Ellsworth Call, Ph. D., who is so rapidly 
making a reputation for himself among speleologists. 
It is only rivaled in size by the Chief City, described 
on the Main Cave Route. The transverse diameter of 
Call's Rotunda is nearly double its largest component, 
which is the great avenue leading to the visitor's right 
hand. This avenue leads us for about three hundred 
yards to a great mass of sandstone debris, where it 
ends. The explorer is here not far from the surface, 
as is proven by these sandstone blocks. It is said that 
at times in this vicinity the rumblings of railroad trains 
overhead are audible. 

Returning to the Rotunda we look down a deep 
gorge called the Dismal Hollow, more uncanny far 
than any scene amid the Kaatskills, made famous by 



84 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

the facile pen of Irving. A black opening in the mas- 
sive walls admits us to Franklin Avenue, about a quar- 
ter of a mile long, and leading to Serena's Arbor, one 
of the unfrequented but most romantic grottoes of the 
cavern. Here the walls are studded with inconceiv- 
ably beautiful botryoidal concretions of lime carbonate. 
Massive onyx columns reach sheer to the sandstone 
roof. Water trickles down with perpetual music and 
finds its way out by crevices in the floor, through which 
a lamp can be lowered and a glimpse thus be had of 
other scenes that man has never yet explored. 

Returning again to Call's Rotunda and taking the 
left-hand branch, as we are going, we are led directly 
to Croghan's Hall, a room some sixty feet wide and 
about thirty feet high. It contains several large stalac- 
tites, some of them marred by Vandals. The material 
is translucent and extremely hard ; being quite equal 
to what is commercially known as Mexican onyx. It 
is a hard carbonate of lime, such as was described by 
Pliny as alabaster, and the name of ' ' oriental alabas- 
ter" is given to it by Dana, to distinguish it from the 
common alabaster, which is a variety of gypsum, or 
the sulphate of lime. 

On our right is a black and deep pit, called the 
Maelstrom. It has generally been described as one 
hundred and seventy-five feet deep ; but as measured by 
Mr. Ben Hains it is only eighty-eight feet from the brink 
to the bottom. If it were an open-air well of that depth 
the descent into it would not be regarded as such a very 
remarkable feat. But it is quite another thing to go 
down into a mysterious chasm, yawning amid the 
rocks, miles from the entrance of this tremendous 
cavern. Hence it really took a degree of courage, on 



THE RIVER ROUTE. 8$ 

the part of Mr. W. C. Prentice, son of the poet-editor, 
George D. Prentice, of Louisville, to go down thither 
in quest of adventures. The story was told at the time 
in the Louisville papers, and was done into spirited 
verse by George Lansing Taylor, D. D. According 
to these accounts the young hero was lowered by a 
stout rope, amid fearful and enchanting scenes, that 
had never been beheld since creation's morning until 
brought to view by the faint rays of his solitary lamp. 
Midway he encountered a waterfall, spouting from the 
wall, into whose shower he unavoidably swung. At 
last he stood on the solid rock at the bottom of the pit. 
On returning to the spot where he had hitched his rope 
to a stalactite, he found it disengaged and dangling 
beyond his reach. Ingeniously twisting the wires of 
his lamp into a long hook, he caught hold again, and 
then signaled to the guides to draw him up. This they 
did with such zeal (believe it who may) as to set the 
cable on fire by friction, so that one of them had to 
crawl out on the timber across which it ran and pour 
water on it to extinguish the flame ! These embellish- 
ments really brought the whole story into discredit. 
But our investigations recently made prove that Pren- 
tice bought the rope in Louisville for the purpose, and 
that he often narrated his adventures afterward as true. 
The main fact of his actually descending into the Mael- 
strom is also verified by guides now living. 

A certain telegraph operator, Richard Babbitt by 
name, was successfully lowered into the Maelstrom 
during Proctor's management of the cave. Matt and 
William, the veteran guides, held the rope ; and it is 
from them personally that we have the account. 
Babbitt found a side opening at the bottom of the 



86 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

pit, through which he tried to go, but found the water 
in it too deep to be forded. WiUiam says that the 
guides did not lose sight of the explorer's light at 
any time. Unfortunately Mr. Babbitt was not inter- 
viewed by a reporter nor immortalized in song. 

Croghan's Hall and its environs may be regarded 
as practically the end of the Mammoth Cave. There 
is no way out other than that by which we have come 
in. Hence we retrace our steps through the crystalline 
gardens, El Ghor, Silliman's Avenue, cross Echo 
River again by boat, and the River Styx by the 
natural bridge. 

But before ascending to the surface let us make a 
special trip to the Mammoth Dome, which is as won- 
derful a place as any other in all this marvelous region 
of silence and of eternal night. In order to do this we 
enter Sparks' Avenue, named for Mr. C. A. Sparks, of 
New York City. This avenue begins with Bandit Hall, 
located at the foot of the Corkscrew. Around us the 
immense rocks are tossed in the wildest confusion. 
But the avenue itself is made easy going by the 
removal of obstructions and by the excavation of 
trenches, where otherwise we should have to stoop. 
Branches from it are known as Briggs' Avenue and 
Sylvan Avenue, the latter leading to Clarissa's Dome, 
where are exhibited the so-called " petrified saw-logs," 
which are merely prostrated stalactites. 

When we first visited the Mammoth Dome, in 1878, 
we were assured that nobody else had been there for 
seven years. Tom Lee was our guide, and the account 
of our adventures appeared in Scribner's Magazine for 
October, 1880. It is now reproduced for the reader, 



THE RIVER ROUTE. 8/ 

with modifications made by consulting notes taken at 
the time, as well as on subsequent visits. 

Barton, my artist, was fascinated with drawing the 
"Corkscrew" — meaning by this ambiguous term the 
exit from River Hall bearing that suggestive name. 
Hence Tom and I went alone through Sparks' Avenue 
till we emerged on a ledge thirty feet long and ten feet 
wide, where we were suddenly confronted by a realm 
of empty darkness. Our four lard-oil lamps were 
swung in vain aloft and over the edge of the terrace. 
They revealed neither floor, wall, nor roof of that sol- 
emn domain. Astonished, I acted on a momentary 
impulse and told Tom to go back for Barton, more 
lamps, and fire-works. It was not until Tom's glim- 
mering light had vanished that I realized what a 
reckless thing had been done. The solitude was 
dreadful. I sat for a time on the edge of the ter- 
race, amusing myself by throwing ignited oil papers, 
by means of which I discovered the floor far below 
me. and also brought to view a rude ladder, with 
several missing rungs, and blackened by age and 
decay. My sensations were overpowering, and I pru- 
dently withdrew to the closer embrace of the narrow 
avenue and whiled the time away by catching cave 
crickets, of which there were hundreds. Barton refused 
to leave until his sketch was done, and accordingly 
an hour or more passed by before he and Tom joined 
me, bringing twenty lamps, with plenty of red fire and 
magnesium. 

Carefully descending the treacherous ladder that no 
foot had pressed for at least seven years, we reached 
the floor safely. We found that it sloped down to g 
dismal pool, into which tumbled a cataract higher than 



88 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

Niagara, though of slender size. By burning chemical 
fires at several points at once we lighted up the huge 
dome, and estimated its dimensions to be about four 
hundred feet in length, one hundred and fifty feet in 
greatest width, and varying from eighty to one hundred 
and fifty feet or more in height. The walls were seen 
to be curtained by alabaster drapery, hanging in ver- 
tical folds that varied in size from a pipestem to a saw- 
log; and these folds were decorated by heavy fringes at 
intervals of about twenty feet. 

A huge gateway at the farther end of the hall opens 
into a room so like the ruins of Luxor and Karnak that 
we named it the Egyptian Temple. The floor here 
is paved with stalagmitic blocks, stained by red and 
black oxides into a natural mosaic. Six colossal col- 
umns, eighty feet high by twenty-five in diameter, stand 
in a semi-circle, flanked by pyramidal towers. The 
material of these shafts is gray oolite, fluted by deep 
furrows, with sharp ridges between, the whole column 
being veneered with yellow stalagmite, rich as jasper, 
and covered by tracery as elaborate as Chinese carv- 
ing. The capitals are jutting slabs of limestone, and 
the bases are garnished by mushroom-shaped stal- 
agmites. The largest of these we named Caliban's 
Cushion. 

While examining these formations I noticed an 
opening behind the third column in the row, and 
clambering down a steep descent reached gloomy cata- 
combs underneath the temple which have since then 
been more fully explored, but without finding much of 
interest. On our way back to the terrace we noticed 
overhead a black opening which Tom assured me was 
identical with the Crevice Pit in Little Bat Avenue. 



THE RIVER ROUTE. 89 

He also showed me the spot where a rusty lamp was 
found on the floor of the Egyptian Temple, and that I 
afterward obtained as a treasure for my cave cabinet. 

The story of the Crevice Pit is well worth telling, as 
originally told by R. M. Bird, M. D., in 1839, and 
confirmed by later authorities. It seems that Mr. 
Gatewood convinced the owners of the cave, whose 
agent he was, that the richest deposit of nitrous earth 
would doubtless be found under the Crevice Pit. To 
test this Mr. Wilkins took a rope forty-five feet long 
and fastened a lamp to it, which he then lowered into 
the pit. The rope accidentally caught fire, and the 
result was the loss of the lamp. That was a serious 
loss in those days, for it could not be replaced short of 
a trip to Lexington. Accordingly a miner climbed 
down to a shelf in the ugly black hole and tried to 
regain his lamp by feeling around for it with his staff. 
But suddenly the stick slipped from his hand and went 
rattling down the abyss. Wilkins then offered a reward 
of two dollars for the recovery of the lamp. A sprightly 
young negro, named Little Dave, volunteered to be let 
down, as a sort of animated plummet, to sound the 
depth of the pit. The story he told on being drawn up 
again was so wonderful that nobody believed him. 
He told of a spacious, splendid dome, bigger than 
the Rotunda, with tall columns and other magnificent 
features, now seen by every visitor to the Mammoth 
Dome. But Little Dave's reward, beside the promised 
two dollars, was the reputation of being either crazy or 
the champion liar of Kentucky. 

Several futile attempts have been made to ascer- 
tain the true depth of the Crevice Pit. Edmund C. 
Lee, in 1835, tied a stone to a string and " struck bot- 



90 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

torn at two hundred and eighty feet ;" and as Lee was 
a civil engineer his statement was for years quoted 
without dispute. In the summer of 1896, Hovey and 
Call ascertained its true depth. It was not an easy 
task, owing to the dangerous nature of the opening. 
First we lowered a light plummet, which lodged after 
going down about thirty feet. But the weight of the 
cord kept pulling itself out of hand till one hundred 
and forty feet had gone down, when the trick was sus- 
pected. Probably Mr. Lee was deceived in this way, 
as many another cave explorer has been. Thus Eldon 
Hole, in Derbyshire Peak, in England, was measured 
as being seven hundred and fifty feet deep, when its real 
depth was only one hundred and eighty-six feet. 

Then attaching a lighted lamp to a cord, Doctor Call 
lowered it, while I stood on the opposite edge and 
watched it go down, calling out whenever it lodged, so 
that it might be pulled off and started down again. 
Leaving the lamp there, to be located afterward by 
going around through Sparks' Avenue to the Mam- 
moth Dome, we next lowered a heavy stone by a cord, 
making allowance for stretching. The cord was then 
measured by a steel tape. The average result of our 
several measurements fixed the distance from the brink 
of the Crevice Pit to the foot of the ladder in the Mam- 
moth Dome as being eighty-eight feet. That point, 
however, is not the bottom of the dome. Doctor Call 
afterward measured the remaining distance, and found it 
to be thirty-one feet, which must be added to the previ- 
ous figure, making the distance one hundred and nine- 
teen feet. But we must not forget to add the space 
excavated by the top of the dome above the mouth of 
the Crevice Pit, and which is certainly as much as 



THE RIVER ROUTE. 9 1 

thirty feet. Putting all this together, we are safe in 
asserting that the distance from the highest to the low- 
est point in the Mammoth Dome exceeds one hundred 
and fifty feet. 

Now our steps are turned toward the mouth of 
the cave. Back we go, through Sparks' Avenue, to 
Bandit Hall. Thence we climb up and up through the 
Corkscrew till fairly bewildered with its windings. It 
is a place to test our latent powers of orientation — that 
marvelous gift that guides the homing pigeons in their 
vast aerial flights. Professor Brewer and the writer 
agreed while amid these mazes, and also in other parts 
of the great cavern, that whenever either said to the 
other, "Point east," the command should be instantly 
obeyed. A moment's pause for reflection would spoil 
it all. But instantaneous obedience was, in frequent 
instances, rewarded by the pointing of the finger 
toward the sunrise. Sometimes we would vary the 
command by bidding each other to point toward the 
north, and with equally satisfactory results, provided 
we could trust instinct instead of reason. 

Cave animals, hundreds of them, find their way 
about without guide, map, lamplight, and even without 
eyes. Dogs lost in the cave invariably find their way 
out. The writer gave a story of canine adventure in 
St. Nicholas Magazine, for April, 1882, the main facts 
of which were as follows : Jack, the veteran house-dog, 
was a cautious brute, who went with us to the Iron 
Gate, peered between the bars, and then trotted reso- 
lutely back to the hotel. Brigham, his frisky comrade, 
pushed ahead and explored on his own account. One 
day he ran off after a cave rat, and we had to leave 



92 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

him to his fate. After two days he and Jack were 
found on opposite sides of the Iron Gate, exchanging 
experiences. We tracked the path taken by the run- 
away and found that he had crossed streams, floundered 
through mud-holes, chmbed cHffs, and apparently gone 
up through the Corkscrew to the Iron Gate, where we 
were glad to greet him as a hero. He may have been 
aided by scenting our trail, but we gave him credit for 
a remarkable gift of "orientation." 

Has the earth lungs .'* And does it breathe .'' It cer- 
tainly seems so to us as we finally emerge from the 
mouth of the cavern. "Antros, " the Greek name for 
cave, simply means "a breathing place," as if through 
caves, as nostrils, the earth inhaled and exhaled the 
vital air. Down in the dark recesses where we have 
been it was almost possible to hear the beating of 
Nature's heart. The long avenues are the superb 
arteries through which flows her life. How easy our 
own respiration has been amid the pure, exhilarating 
air that comes oxygenated from the central reservoirs 
of the globe. As we climb upv^^ard to the garish light 
of day we feel the loss of those strong and invigor- 
ating atmospheric influences. We almost dread the 
humidity, the heavy odors, the suffocating exhalations 
of the weeds, trees, grasses, and flowers. Every visitor 
is surprised at what he experiences, particularly on 
emerging from the River Route, where for nine hours 
he has been stimulated by the oxygenated air. Linger- 
ing awhile near the entrance to get used to the yellow 
sunlight, or the silvery light of the moon, we also grow 
accustomed to the oppressive atmosphere that sweeps 
through the Kentucky woods, and which would ordi- 
narily be described as the purest country air. 



THE RIVER ROUTE. 93 

Finally, breaking away from the fascination of the 
wide and forever open mouth of the great cavern, that 
seems to be tacitly inviting us to renew our interior 
explorations, we cross the rocky platform, the rural 
road, the vineclad valley, and climb the forest path- 
way to the crest of the bluff. 



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE CAVERN. 

BY RICHARD ELLSWORTH CALL. 

THE limits of this Manual preclude a complete dis- 
cussion of the questions involved in a study of 
the natural history of the cavern. The blind 
animals, their relation to their environment, and their 
relation to closely allied forms without the cave, are all 
necessarily excluded from complete consideration here. 

GEOLOGY. 

The main features in the geology of the region have 
been stated by Doctor Hovey and need not be here 
repeated. The fact, however, that the superincumbent 
sandstone strata have been removed in large areas 
explains the formation of the numerous sinkholes of the 
region, and explains also the occlusion of the subter- 
ranean galleries. The visitor will have ample oppor- 
tunity to observe the results of this almost complete 
removal at the ends of the several great halls along 
which he will pass. These results may be noted at the 
end of Rafinesque Hall, at the end of Gratz Avenue, in 
the Sandstone Mountains, and at the end of Dixon's 
Cave. In each of these places the thin crust of sand- 
stone, permeated by water and weakened in conse- 
quence thereof, unsupported below, has fallen in, and 
with it a vast mass of the soil and humus of the several 
areas. These tumbled masses completely occlude the 
galleries in which they occur, while at the same time 
they tell the observer that he is not far below the 
surface at those places. 



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE CAVERN. 95 

In but a single place in the Main Cave may the 
student note that the strata are bent and folded in a 
direction the reverse of the arch, forming a mimic syn- 
cline. That locality is at the Cataracts, in the short 
hall which leads to the left of the falling waters. The 
great avenue is entirely closed at that locality by lime- 
stone debris fallen from the ceiling. In this remote 
portion of the cave the limestone strata are all thinner 
than in the nearer portions, and the slight orographic 
movements to which the rocks unquestionably have 
been subjected here have cracked and fissured them 
as in but few places in the cave. The end of the hall is 
a mass of thin limestone plates, suspended from the 
ceiling and in imminent danger of falling. But they 
probably have been in this condition for centuries.- 
They are bent by the great weight of the sandstone 
masses above them. Over the cascades is a sink, and 
this has determined the flow of the waters which now 
enter the cave at some distance from the crushed 
limestone arch and are steadily, though slowly, work- 
ing away from it and towards the right. In time a 
new and narrow avenue will be produced which will 
form a pitlike channel far into the surrounding rocks. 

The visitor will be impressed with the evidences of 
solution which greet him on every hand. Water has 
long since abandoned many of the large upper avenues, 
but is still at work in the lower levels and under the 
sinks. The geologist will find the work of water as a 
solvent evidenced by the Pigeon Holes, the Mummy's 
Niche, the Fat Man's Misery, the rounded and worn 
bosses, and by the want of angularity of many a 
turn and bend of the spacious halls. In the region 
of the pits and domes, in the great halls along the 



96 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

rivers, where sundry waterfalls come tumbling into 
the cavern, he will observe it now at work. 

The rocks which contain Mammoth Cave, and all 
the caverns surrounding it, are of Subcarboniferous 
age. There are but two members of the Subcarbonif- 
erous included in the vertical section, and they are the 
Chester Sandstone, which forms the immediate surface 
rock, of varying thickness, and the St. Louis Lime- 
stone, largely, in this section, oolitic, in which the great 
body of the cave is formed. Between these members, 
but not always present, is a variant layer of conglom- 
erate, from which are derived most of the silicious 
pebbles which are found in the floor of the cavern in 
certain places, as, for example, in the Wooden Bowl 
Room. From the low-water level of Green River to 
the top of the sandstone upper bluff the difference of 
elevation is about three hundred and twenty-five feet. 
The lowermost level of the cave, found only on Echo 
River and in the bottoms of some of the larger pits, is 
thus about three hundred and twenty-five feet below 
the highest level of the region. In no place does any 
dome penetrate far into the superincumbent sandstone, 
but the tops of most of them are in the lower layers of 
the sandstone capping. This will give less than two 
hundred feet for the height of any single hall or chamber 
in the great cavern. None yet measured have a greater 
height than one hundred and sixty feet, and all are 
commonly greatly exaggerated in popular articles writ- 
ten about the cave. 

The genesis of the cavern is rather simple. Slight 
orographic movements have caused fissures and joints to 
form in the solid limestone, and thus has been permitted 
the access of waters charged with carbon dioxide. Time 



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE CAVERN. 9/ 

has done the rest. The visitor who reads these hnes 
will have seen many fissures along which water has thus 
entered the solid rock along fracture planes, and from 
these small beginnings will have seen avenues formed. 
That is to say, he will find illustrations of every step 
of the process from the waters percolating through the 
rock to waters which flow along fissures, or tumble 
over ledges where the fissures have become avenues. 
But he will have looked in vain for evidences of corra- 
sion. There will be noted no evidence that erosion 
was ever much more rapid than now; no evidence that 
the ancient subterranean streams were ever much 
larger than they are now. The beds of sand which are 
to be noted along the rivers or high up in the water- 
abandoned avenues consist of grains that have been 
little rounded and smoothed, but are practically as 
sharp as when they fell from the great beds of Subcar- 
boniferous sandstone which covered the region. Such 
could not have been the case with sand which has very 
plainly played the part of a tool of abrasion. Then, 
too, the stalactites and stalagmites all tell of solution, 
nothing else. The ever-growing crystals of gypsum 
and calcite or sodium sulphate tell of percolating waters 
and of their secret chemistry. In brief, the visitor is 
to look at the great work of excavation of Mammoth 
Cave as solely a problem in solution. 

The geological section of Mammoth Cave is now 
clearly apparent to the visitor. He will have noted 
that the surface rock is sandstone, that it is separated by 
a thin layer of conglomerate, in some places, from an 
underlying limestone terrane which reaches far below 
the drainage level of the region. This limestone is solid, 
and for the most part is oolitic, though there are many 



98 MAMMOTH CAVE, 

portions of the cave where the oolitic character is want- 
ing. In certain parts, as along the end of Hovey's 
Ramble and at the bottom of the Bottomless Pit and 
Garvin's Pit, as well as in the Mammoth Dome, the 
oolitic structure will be plainly apparent. Elsewhere 
it is disguised by the results of solution and redeposi- 
tion of limestone covering the face of the walls and the 
pits. In the old and dry portions of the cave beyond 
the rivers the faces of the avenues are covered with 
crystals of calcium sulphate, and it is difficult to ascer- 
tain the real character of the rock. Everywhere the 
rock surfaces are soft enough to be easily scratched with 
the knife. At numerous places in Hovey's Ramble and 
in the Labyrinth the rock easily disintegrates, the small 
egg-like particles being entirely separated by the solvent 
action of the water in those passages. Some of the 
smaller avenues have a floor of oolite sand. 

That solution chiefly produced Mammoth Cave is 
further evidenced by the character of the various pits. 
Without exception these all have fluted walls, scored 
and furrowed by the waters of the minute rivulets 
which stream down their sides; without exception these 
pits are small at the top and broaden below. From 
the topmost arch of some of them water falls and aids 
mechanically the work of solution. In places the rock 
is harder than at other places, and also yields less read- 
ily to solution. It thus results that jagged and irregu- 
lar walls are found in all the pits. At the bottoms of 
some of them may be found pebbles of chert, an 
impure flint, derived from a cherty hmestone which 
appears in some portions of the cave. These, when 
washed about by the falling waters or by the swell- 
ing underground streams, may act as graving tools to 



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE CAVERN. 99 

make still deeper the floor of the pits and channels, if 
not already down to the lower drainage level. But 
only locally could these processes have obtained, and 
the amount of work done by them was relatively small. 

Localities of especial geological interest are the 
grottoes and halls in which stalactites are forming ; the 
occluded avenues where the sandstone formerly super- 
incumbent on the limestone has fallen in ; the pits 
where the process of erosion and solution may still be 
in progress ; the rivers along which the limestone is 
always soft, testifying to the action of the carbon 
dioxide contained in the circulating waters. Nowhere 
in the cave are there evidences of disturbance or of 
tilting and displacing of the strata. On the contrary, 
the visitor will be impressed with the uniform horizon- 
tality of the layers of rock along which he passes. 
Perhaps the greater fragmental rocks, like the Giant's 
Coffin, the Standing Rocks, the Whale, Gatewood's 
Dining Table, and those found in the beds of the 
larger avenues or that make up the winding way 
called the Corkscrew, have been detached by earth- 
quake action, but this is mere surmise. That masses 
weakened by solution would fall of their own weight, 
as fall the crystals of calcium sulphate all along 
the Crystal Avenue beyond the rivers, is true. Perhaps 
these greater rocks were so detached rather than by 
any general earth movements. 

Stalactites and stalagmites are forming in many 
parts of Mammoth Cave, though perhaps the very best 
exhibition of them is to be seen in the neighboring 
White Cave, geologically a unit with its greater com- 
panion. At the end of Audubon Avenue, in Olive's 
Bower, in Croghan Hall at the end of the River Route, 



lOO MAMMOTH CAVE. 

and in Mammoth Dome may be seen the best illustra- 
tions of stalactitic formation in the cave. It requires 
no word of reminder that these processes, both destruc- 
tive and constructive, are constant attendants on solu- 
tion. In some places the avenues have been com- 
pletely occluded by the stalagmitic deposits, as is true 
of the avenue leading beyond Olive's Bower, and of 
two small avenues which lead from the Mammoth 
Dome. But this species of geologic agent can only 
act where there is free access of waters which are 
meteoric in origin and enter the cave charged with car- 
bon dioxide. Also, these localities indicate to the geo- 
logically trained observer that over them the sandstone 
cap has been completely removed, or nearly so, per- 
mitting the free access of water and the solution of the 
limestone rock. 

It is thus that the conclusion is reached that Mam- 
moth Cave is mainly the product of solution, and that 
all the hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of lime- 
stone have been slowly dissolved and carried away, 
forming the mineral content of the waters circulating 
in the subterranean world. 

THE FAUNA AND FLORA. 

Quite thirty years passed away after the discovery 
of Mammoth Cave before the adventurous spirit of 
Stephen Bishop devised a rude way to cross the Bot- 
tomless Pit. Soon after the rivers were discovered, 
which followed immediately after this daring adventure, 
the earliest specimens of crayfish and blind-fish were 
also found. Previous to this time occasional mention 
was made of the ' ' cave crickets " and the ' ' cave rats, " 
which the miners and early visitors imagined to be the 
common Norway or domestic rat. That was all. 



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE CAVERN. lOI 

It is an interesting fact that, with the exception of 
the bhnd-fish, the earliest descriptions of animals from 
the Mammoth Cave were by Europeans, All the 
American visitors appear to have had little regard for 
any thing except the scenic features of the cavern. But 
in 1844 there were described two blind beetles, one 
blind spider, and the blind crayfish, all in a German sci- 
entific publication, and by Doctor T. Tellkampf. Two 
years previously, 1842, Doctor DeKay had described in 
the Natural History of New York the blind-fish under 
the nz.me oi Ajnblyopsis spelcBUSf making the Mammoth 
Cave form, which was then alone known, the type of 
the genus. Doctor Jeffries Wyman published a minute 
description of the Amblyopsis spelcsus, with interesting 
anatomical details, in 1843. (See Vol. xlv, American 
Journal of Science and Art, page 94.) But it yet 
remained for Doctor Tellkampf to still further describe 
and illustrate this species, his work appearing in the 
New York Journal of Medicine, July, 1845, with plates 
showing the entire fish and its anatomy, constituting 
the first known illustrations of this form. 

It was, however, not until 1871 that very much 
became known about the various forms of life found in 
this cave. In the previous year Doctor A. S. Packard 
and Professor F. W. Putnam had made extensive col- 
lections and described them, their work appearing in 
the American Naturalist in 1871, with excellent descrip- 
tions and fine illustrations. Later, two days' active 
collecting was done in the cavern by Mr. H. G. 
Hubbard, who published his results in the American 
Entomologist, Vol. in, in 1880. Numerous shorter 
papers have appeared, in all about one hundred, in 
various languages, in scientific journals and the pro- 



I02 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

ceedings of learned societies, and these all add a little 
to our knowledge of the life forms in the cavern. 

The most extensive treatise on the animals of this 
cave is to be found in the Memoirs of the National Acad- 
emy of Sciences, and is a memoir on Cave Animals of 
North America, by Doctor A. S. Packard, junior, pub- 
lished in 1889. In this work will be found all accessible 
information relating to the cavern fauna up to the time 
of its publication ; since then, however, extensive col- 
lections made by the writer have revealed a number of 
new forms which have been elsewhere described and 
figured.* 

The facts connected with these interesting animals 
are so scattered that it has been deemed of considera- 
ble interest to many students to indicate the nature of 
the forms and the localities where they are likely to be 
seen by the visitor. In doing so there has been no 
attempt at systematic classification beyond indicating 
the greater zoological groups to which the forms belong. 

If the visitor desires to collect, permission being 
secured from the management beforehand, it will be 
well to remember that the drier portions of the cave 
will afford him little or nothing save lost time; but in 
the damper portions of his several trips he may hope to 
have abundant success. Thus, to instance a few local- 
ities, he will probably find specimens of three kinds of 
flies in and around the decaying specimens of Coprinus, 
which he will find at various places along the River 
Route. With them, also, will be found occasional 
specimens of the small brown beetle, Adclops. In the 

*See The American Naturalist, Vol. xxxi, pp. 377-392. pis. x, xi, May, 1897. 
"Some Notes on the Fauna and Flora of Mammoth Cave." By R. Ellsworth 
Call. Also "Notes on the Flora of Mammoth Cave." By R. Ellsworth Call. 
Journal Cincinnati Society Natural History, Vol. xix, pp. 79, 80, 1897 



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE CAVERN. IO3 

Way to Pits and Domes, near Richardson's Spring, he 
will find historic collecting ground, for this is one of 
Packard's richest localities. Under the damp flat 
stones he will here take Tellkampf's small white spider, 
and that interesting little thysanurid, Campodea cookei^ 
described from this place by Packard. Scurrying over 
the muddy walk or hiding under the flat stones go a 
number of brown beetles, to which has been given the 
name of Anophthabmis. A little farther on and under 
the old timbers which are here to be seen will be 
secured white myriapods, belonging to Scoterpes. If 
the characteristics of the locality be carefully noted, 
the visitor may be sure that any similar locality will 
afford him other specimens of the same or other kinds. 
At the end of Gratz Avenue and in Flint Dome, 
should the visitor go to that portion of the cavern, in 
the waters of Shaler's Brook, and in the pools in the 
midst of the dome, he will find myriads of the small 
white crustacean, Ccscidotea stygia; occasional speci- 
mens may also be taken in Richardson's Spring. 

The larger crustacean, Canibariis pellucidus, can be 
had only in the Echo and connected rivers, though the 
writer collected two specimens in Flint Dome, until 
then not known to have any connection with the rivers 
themselves. Of course, the Echo will be, with its 
pools, the only place where may be found the blind- 
fish. And neither of these last named forms will prove 
to be abundant. They are to be collected with great 
difficulty, even though they may commonly be seen by 
the visitor as he wends his way along the rivers, on 
both sides thereof. Occasional specimens are stranded 
and left in pools which become quite dry on the reces- 
sion of the waters after a rise. Roaring River, never 



I04 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

visited by the tourist, which is a succession of muddy 
pools for a long distance, is a famous place to collect 
them, but for these the visitor must arrange with the 
management. 

It is not proposed in this place to review the entire 
known fauna of the cave nor to list, with descriptions, 
all of its plants. The casual visitor will have little use 
for either, because, unless he is a naturalist, and some- 
what acquainted with the habits of the animals and 
plants, he will search long in vain ; when he does find 
their favorite haunts, with few exceptions he will dis- 
cover that they are rare. 

The following list is complete up to the present time, 
and contains all the species which are certainly known 
in the cave : 

INFUSORIA. 

Chilomonas emarginata Ehrenberg. River Styx. 
Chilodon cucuUulus Ehrenberg. River Styx. 
Monas kolpoda (?). Serena's Bower. 
Monas socialis (?). Serena's Bower. 

VERMES. 

Dendrocaelum percaecum Packard. Shaler's Brook ; Rich- 
ardson's Spring. 

Lumbricus sp. Banks of Echo River. 

CRUSTACEA. 

Canthocamptus cavernarum Packard. Wandering Willie's 
Spring. 

Caecidotea stygia Packard. Flint Dome ; Shaler's Brook. 
Crangonyx vitreus Cope. Flint Dome ; Richardson's Spring. 
Crangonyx sp. Shaler's Brook. 
Cambarus pellucidus Tellkampf . Echo River ; Flint Dome. 

ARACHNIDA. 

Laslaps cavernicola Packard. Labyrinth. 
Gamasus troglodytes Packard. Locality unknown. 



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE CAVERN. 10$ 

Belba bulbipedatus Packard. Labyrinth. 

Chthonius packardii Hagen. Mammoth Dome ; Labyrinth. 

Phalangodes armata Tellkampf. Bottomless Pit ; Gorin's 
Dome ; Labyrinth ; Mary's Vineyard ; Hovey's Ramble. 

Anthrobia mammouthia Tellkampf. Labyrinth ; Bottom- 
less Pit. 

Caelotes juvenilis Keyserling. Locality unknown. 

Liocranoides unicolor Keyserling. Labyrinth. 

Linopodes mammouthia Banks. Labyrinth. 

Rhagidia cavicola Banks. Labyrinth. 

Willibaldia incerta Emerton. Labyrinth. 

Phanetta subterranea Emerton. Labyrinth. 

INSECTA. 

Dorypteryx (?) hageni Banks. Damall's Way. 

Smynthurus mammouthia Banks. Darnall's Way. 

Entomobrya cavicola Banks. Darnall's Way. 

Campodea cookei Packard. All moist stations under stones, 
especially in Richardson's Spring region; Hovey's Ramble. 

Machilis cavemicola Tellkampf. Labyrinth. 

Hadenaecus subterraneus Scudder. Everywhere, nearly. 

Elipsocus sp. 

Adelops hirtus Tellkampf. Numerous stations; especially 
abundant in Washington Hall, 

Anophthalmus tellkampfii Erichson. All moist stations. 

Anophthalmus menetresii Motsch. Labyrinth; Washing- 
ton Hall. 

Anophthalmus interstitialis Hubbard. Washington Hall. 

Anophthalmus striatus Motsch. Labyrinth. 

Anophthalmus audax Horn. Washington Hall. 

Sciara inconstans Fitch. Mammoth Dome. 

Limosina stygia Coquillett. Mammoth Dome. 

Phora rufipes Meig. Labyrinth ; Gorin's Dome ; Hovey's 
Ramble. 

Scoterpes copei Packard. Labyrinth ; Bottomless Pit ; 
Mary's Vineyard ; River Hall. 



I06 MAMMOTH CAVE. 

VERTEBRATA. 

Neotoma magister Baird. Everywhere ; especially abun- 
dant in Washington Hall near lunching station. 

Peromyscus leucopus Rafinesque. Rotunda, 

Vespertilio lucifugus LeConte. Rotunda ; Little Bat Ave- 
nue ; Olive's Bower. 

Vesperugo carolinensis Geoff. St. Hil. Audubon's Avenue. 

Spelerpes longicaudus Green. Mouth of Cave ; Flint Dome. 

Amblyopsis spelaeus DeKay. Echo River ; Roaring River. 

Typhlichthys subterraneus Girard. Echo River. 

Chologaster agassizii Putnam. Echo River. 

MOLLUSCA. 

Carychium stygium Call. Mammoth Dome. 

This is not an extensive list of animals for so large 
a cavern, but it is to be remembered that collection is 
very difficult under the conditions which prevail in the 
cave. The list, such as it is, results from the occa- 
sional work of numerous collectors ; an exhaustive and 
complete study of the fauna has yet to be instituted. 

PLANT^E. 

Very much less is known of the plants of the cave 
than of its animals. Only the most cursory collections 
have yet been made, though the writer has sought to 
make complete the collections of microscopic forms. 
Many of those collected were indeterminate, and others 
are yet undescribed. This will, in a measure, account 
for the meagre list. 

It should be remarked in passing that with but two 
or three exceptions the forms found are all such as 
occur on the surface of the ground, and all are fungi or 
related groups. The list now following contains all 
certainly known at this time : 



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE CAVERN. 10/ 

Coprinus micaceus Bull. River Hall only. Groups of this 
toad-stool are sometimes found along River Hall, near the 
boat landing and at the Cascades, near the River Styx. 

Fomes applanatus Pers. Labyrinth. 

Rhizomorpha molinaris. Abundant on old timbers in 
Mammoth Dome. Probably, like its foreign relatives, this 
form will be found to be phosphorescent. 

Microascus longirostis Zukal. Washington Hall. 

Zasmidium cellare Fr. Corkscrew, at top, on old barrel 
bead. 

Mucor mucedo Linn. Labyrinth ; Mary's Vineyard ; River 
Hall. 

Gymnoascus setosus Eidam. Washington Hall. 

Sporotrichum densum Link. On dead crickets. 

Sporotrichum flavissimum Link. Washington Hall. 

Laboulbenia subterranea. On Anophthalmus. 

Coemansia sp. Washington Hall. 

Papulospora sp. Washington Hall. 

Bouderia sp. Washington Hall. 

The great number of forms from Washington Hall 
is to be explained by the fact that in that locality may 
be found a great mass of refuse from dining parties ; 
on the rejectamenta of lunches many varieties of minute 
fungi occur, though the spores are quite likely intro- 
duced by visitors and in or with the food. A single 
very small but beautiful Peziza occurs on the timbers 
in Mammoth Dome, but is certainly introduced from 
without. The same fact is true of amorphous forms of 
Fames applanatus taken from bridge timbers in the 
Labyrinth. 



0iir Vcivtv JViitngrnphs. 

[In the lap$e of time impressions lose much of their clearness; scenes 
and incidents which one would wish to remember are forgotten. In 
visitations, such as tourist make to Mammoth Cave, it is often desirable 
to record impressions received and to list the personnel of a party. To 
serve this purpose the following pages are provided.] 



no OUR PARTY AUTOGRAPHS. 



OUK PARTY AUTOGRAPHS. I I I 



KEY TO THE MAP. 



I. 


The Iron Gate. 


34- 


2. 


Hutchins' Narrows. 


35- 


3- 


Corkscrew and Kentucky 


36. 




Cliffs. 


37- 


4- 


The Church. 


38. 


5- 


Booth's Amphitheatre. 


39- 


6. 


Standing Rocks. 


40. 


7- 


Grand Arch. 


41. 


8. 


Giant's Coffin and Dante's 


42. 




Gateway. 


43- 


9- 


Acute Angle and Cottages. 


44. 


lO. 


Proctor Arcade. 


45- 


II. 


Wright Rotunda. 


46. 


12. 


The Cataracts. 


47- 


13- 


Fairy Grotto. 


48. 


14. 


St. Catherine City. 


49. 


15- 


Symmes' Pit. 


50. 


16. 


Mummy's Niche. 


51- 


17- 


Register Hall. 


52. 


18. 


The Bridal Altar. 


53- 


19. 


The Arm-chair. 


54- 


20, 


Lover's Leap. 


55. 


21. 


Elbow Crevice, 


56. 


22. 


Napoleon Dome. 


57- 


23- 


Lake Purity. 


58. 


24. 


Annette Dome. 




25- 


Lee's Cisterns. 


59- 


26. 


Wooden Bowl Room. 


60. 


27. 


Way to Pits and Domes. 


61. 


28. 


Side-Saddle Pit. 


62. 


29. 


Bottomless Pit. 


63- 


30. 


Covered Pit. 


64. 


31. 


Scylla. 


65- 


32. 


Charybdis. 


66. 


33- 


Putnam Cabinet. 





Darnall Way. 

End of Hovey's Ramble, 

Reveller's Hall. 

Grand Crossing. 

Pineapple Bush. 

Angelica Grotto. 

Scotchman Trap. 

Fat Man's Misery. 

Great Relief. 

The Dead Sea. 

Styx Cascade, 

Cascade Hall. 

Serpent Hall. 

Valley-way Side Cut. 

The Great Western. 

Vale of Flowers. 

Lucy Dome. 

Ole Bull Concert Hall. 

Fly Chamber. 

Sheep Shelter. 

Corinne Dome. 

Black Hole of Calcutta. 

Washington Hall. 

Snow Ball Room. 

Floral Cross, Last Ouloph- 

olite. 
Pai'adise, 
Zoe Grotto. 
Flora's Garden. 
Vale of Diamonds. 
Charlotte Grotto. 
Serena Arbor. 
The Maelstrom. 
Dismal Hollow. 




— *^ JP 


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MAP OF THE 

dVIMOTH CAVE 

PREPARED BY 

R. E. CALL 
ia97 



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